Reality Check: A Stitch In Time
by Rayth Ulthran
Summary: The third and final installement of the Reality Check Trilogy. A young girl awakens in a laboratory with no memories of her past. Now, with the help of a new friend, she must discover her past, and remove the stone that split the tides of time in two...
1. Prologue: The Tides Of Time

Disclaimer: Please refer to the previous installements of The Reality Check Trilogy for legal information. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile.

A/N: This is only a prologue, just giving you a taster to keep you satisfied until I have time to do a proper chapter. Keep watching!

* * *

_**Prologue: The Tides Of Time**_

Twenty years ago, the Spiritseers were wiped out in a horrific war that engulfed not only the Spirit Realm, but also Earth and Gaia. Millions upon millions were killed, families were separated, magnificent cities were razed to the ground in a terrifying chain of events.

However, this was just one line of events. Deep in the shattered fragments of time, there was another future. One filled with hope, happiness, and light, filled with prosperity and peace. This was the other side of the time stream.

In the middle lies the stone that split the tides of time in two. Time was hurt badly by this stone, causing the tremendous split in destiny. In one hand lay destruction, despair and death. In the other lay the light of a better future.

All that is needed is for the stone to be removed, and time should heal itself. That stone's name is Lazarus, and his actions determine which of these futures will happen.

_The Light Chamber was wonderfully illuminated in the blissful light that shone from the Light Crystal in the very centre of the room. On the floor lay two dark objects. There was a young girl lying on her back, pale and still in death. She was wearing a shoulderless black top, with simple black combat pants. There was a large slash across her chest, oozing dark red blood. Her raven black matted hair was flayed out across the ground beneath her, resembling a large blood splatter. There was a thin trickle of deep red blood slithering down from the corner of her mouth, a stark contrast to her now pale complexion._

_Next to her lay another youth, this one male, wearing a long navy blue travelling cloak over a simple black shirt, also wearing the same type of pants as his female companion. He lay on his front, his face pointing towards the other corpse, smears of blood across his cheeks, his dark blonde shock of hair was dark red with the contents of his body. He lay in a still pool of blood that reflected the light from the benevolent orb in the very centre of the chamber._

_A man walked into the chamber through a heavy steel door, flanked by two others. Each of them had silver hair, each done up in different styles. The one in the centre had a shock of silver hair, quite short, barely reaching the back of his neck. The female on the right had long hair that went far beyond her shoulders, a contrast to the backless black dress she wore. It almost looked like she was attending a funeral._

_The man on the left had quite long hair, the fringe concealing one of dark purple eyes, the back going far beyond his neck, reaching the bottom of his shoulder blades. The two men wore deep black armour, highlighted by a symbol in the very centre showing a flaming eye with a knife straight through it._

_The centre man looked at a small slit in the ground is dismay, the snapped golden hilt lay beside it._

"_Our master has been vanquished, it seems." The woman muttered._

"_Looks that way, Cocytus. What do you think Styx?" The man on the right questioned the centre man. Styx wore an expression of dark delight when he noticed who the female was, the one lying dead on the floor._

"_I think that she could come in useful. Take her with us Acheron, leave the other one." Acheron stepped forward and picked up the corpse, moving her onto his shoulder. "Be careful with her, she's got some precious cargo on board." He nodded, and left._

"_What are you plotting?" Cocytus raised an eyebrow at Styx._

"_A great irony, my dear sister. Our master will live yet, but we must be patient. This will take quite a long time." He grinned at the man lying on the floor. "Fool." He laughed coldly and left, closely followed by Cocytus, leaving the corpse alone to it's silence._

The tides of time were now divided, and new events were unravelling...


	2. Chapter One: Awakening

Disclaimer: Check out the previous fics, and if you have any queries/complaints, then don't hesitate to e-mail me at the address displayed in my profile. Anyone who steals any of my characters/creations without my permission will be shot at close range with an Ultima, and then possibly have their ass sued off, depending on how I feel at the time.

A/N: Ah, nothing like the start of a new fic. (sniff sniff) Hmm, smells like brick. Anywho, this is the last installment in the Reality Check Trilogy, so it might be an idea to read those first before going onto this one. However, I did kind of design it so that you could read this one before reading the second section, but it would leave you awfully confused. So read Help I'm Stuck In FF9 first, then Back To Reality, and then this one.

In other news, I have planned out some short stories explaining bits that weren't covered in the other fics, like the five year gap, some of the events during that week in Zion, some of the events after the second fic, and some others too. I'll let you know when I start posting them up, so keep an eye out.

Other than that, it's time to start this thing!

* * *

_**Reality Check: A Stitch In Time

* * *

**_

_**Chapter 1: Awakening**_

Light. A bright light burst it's way into my eyes. Vague blurs blocked some of the light, slowly coming into focus. I quickly became aware of my surroundings, and more importantly, my position. I felt the hard cold surface against my back, and slowly realised that I was lying on a table. As I came to my senses, I tried to think of a few things. Where was I? How did I get here?

Who am I?

I began to hear muffled noises, and I realised that someone was talking. The vague sound began to clear, and I understood what was being said.

"Looks like she's waking up, better get some more of that anesthetic over here." A male voice calmly requested. The man was wearing an all-over surgical suit, his eyes barely visible through the visor over his face. "How's the procedure going?" I heard him ask someone out of my sight range.

"Twenty seven percent, sir."

"Okay then, just get more some more anesthetic so we can finish this up." I started to feel a major headache coming on, a vile pain reverberating through my mind. I wanted to move, but the numbness in my muscles was still wearing off. However, I did realise I could do one thing.

"W...whe...where..." I struggled to speak out loud. The man standing over me looked down, a look of mild impatience on his face.

"Progress report."

"Thirty one percent."

"Can we hurry this up please?" I slowly felt my limbs start to recover. Who were these people? Why was I lying on this table? I suddenly had a feeling of great dread in my stomach. I wanted to get out.

"H...hel...p..." I tried to speak.

"Thirty five percent." The man looked down at me, straight into my eyes. He leant closer to me, as if trying to decipher what I was saying. My mind was screaming at me to escape, but to where?

"Here you go, sir." Another man came up and handed him a injection needle of some sort. I knew I had to do something, but what?

As his hand came down my side, I felt my hand tingle. Something was happening to my body, I felt my energies rise, slowly becoming stronger. Suddenly, a bright flash of ice erupted from my tingling hand, freezing the man's arm in place, covering it in twinkling ice. He screamed out in pain, dropping to the floor and clutching his arm in agony. What the hell was that? I barely had any time to think as the one who had handed him the needle smashed a small red button on the clean white wall beside the door. Alarms started blaring, and I tried to hide my ears from the strange alien noise, rolling sideways slowly off the edge of the cold metal table, landing hard on the shiny sterile floor. I could feel my limbs trembling from shock, and I could do nothing but watch helplessly as two guards ran into the room, armed with big black sticks. The man who had activated the alarm pointed to me.

"She's gone nuts!" He shouted. I felt my hands begin to tingle once again, feeling an unknown power run through my veins. Seconds later, the two guards were clutching huge icicles that were stuck fast in their bodies, dropping to the floor in agony.

I didn't understand what was happening to my body, how was I performing these impossible feats? I tenderly climbed to my feet, examining my clothing. It wasn't exactly flattering, the surgical gown left practically nothing to the imagination. My feet were stinging slightly on the chilled floor, and the shattered ice hanging around wasn't exactly helping matters. As I stepped forward, I could feel a sharp pain, and found that the ice fragments were a little sharper than expected, and my feet now left a dark crimson trail behind them. Slowly, I limped on, desperate to escape this strange world that I had awoken to.

I slowly made my way over to the young man cowering in the corner, his pure white lab coat sprayed with specks of dark blood from the two impaled guards. On seeing my approach, he scooted along the floor in fear, his eyes wide and never leaving mine.

"Please don't kill me!" He began to beg for his life, explaining that he was a single parent with a young daughter. I didn't really care. He was an innocent, I wouldn't harm him unless he did something to harm me. I opened my mouth, discovering that the effect of the anesthetic had yet to wear off on my vocal cords, leaving me to try and make sounds that resembled words.

"Wh...ere...am...I?" I asked him, trying to look as harmless as possible. That wasn't going to work though, I was altogether too aware of the corpses that lay silent in the room. They'd probably had friends, family, children, and I'd just robbed them of that. I suppressed the sudden twang of guilt that worked it's way up from my stomach to my chest, listening to the terrified young man's explanation.

We were in a medical research lab near to some place called Alexandria, wherever that was. They had been running tests on me for neurological disorders. This didn't explain why I didn't remember anything, and I got the distinct feeling he was giving me the whole truth.

"Wh...at...is...my...na...me?" He looked at me in confusion.

"Eve Andrews. Don't you remember?"

"No." So my name was Eve. That was one thing taken care of. Now to get out of here. I limped towards the window, looking outside at the massive dark fields, lit every few moments by a slow moving spotlight. In the very far distance, I could see the faint outline of a city in the night, one that looked almost prehistoric compared to the lab I found myself in. I assumed this was Alexandria, and I leant on the window to get a better look.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in my head, and I felt my entire world move slightly. It was easy to miss at first, but I felt my surroundings change subtly, and I flew head over heels through the window, leaning too hard on it in surprise from the change. I felt mild stabbing pains all over my body, and realised that the window had shattered into tiny fragments, most of them sticking in my flesh, or just simply slicing into my body as I fell.

The ground was softened by a wet dewy grass, and I relished the cool sweetness of the air, the damp ground moistening my skin. Slowly, I climbed back to my feet, wincing from the assorted cuts and bruises in my body, blood staining the white hospital gown a stark red.

I began to limp helplessly along, heading towards the faint city in the far distance, now lit up by an eerie green glow, almost as though it had been exposed to radiation. After a while, the sharp pain in my head returned, and I saw the calm green glow vanish, leaving me alone in the dark with only the pale moonlight to guide me.

---

Kes was bored. His job was to sit on the roof of the lab complex, watching for any signs of attack with his trusty rifle. Nothing had happened for months on end, and he was eagerly awaiting the shift change. His girlfriend had been a little irritated with his decision to work nights, but he knew that she'd be cheered up tonight. He toyed with the small maroon box in his pocket, opening it to admire the ring within. It was only a simple gold ring with a meagre diamond, but he'd saved up for months to get this. He knew she would be happy about it, he just knew it.

Suddenly, he noticed some movement in the dark. Curious, he pointed his rifle at the movement, zooming in with his scope. It was a young woman, limping across the fields in front of the house, wearing a bloodied hospital gown.

Kes suddenly remembered the alert before, and realised that this must be an escapee. He took aim, lining up the crosshair on her dark gold hair, breathing slowly. Just as he squeezed the trigger, he felt the barrel being pulled down sharply, and the bullet flew straight into her right thigh, causing her to cry out in pain, something he could hear even from here. He popped his head up and saw that there was a silver haired man currently holding a lethal-looking knife to his neck.

"Do not kill her. I do not tolerate failure to follow orders. If you continue down this path, then you won't live past your next birthday." Acheron growled menacingly. Kes nodded nervously, and he lowered the knife from the neck. "That girl is more important to us than twenty thousand of you, so I will not have many qualms about spilling your blood." He looked as she crawled along the grass, whimpering in agony, losing more and more blood as the seconds passed by. "Leave her be, she could be of yet more use to us." He ordered Kes, just as his replacement turned up. Kes hurried off rapidly, just thankful to be alive. He knew he had to head home, before anything else happened.

---

I was in agony, the bullet lodged in my right thigh was beyond any pain I had felt so far, blood oozing out of the acorn-sized hole in my leg. Determined to escape, I crawled along, dragging myself across the sweet grass with my remaining functional limbs, panting heavily.

How I made it to the city, I would never know. When I reached the cobbled streets of Alexandria I was far beyond exhaustion, deathly pale after losing a colossal amount of blood, my ragged clothing drenched in my life fluids. I collapsed heavily on the floor, giving up for the moment. I would be completely defenseless if someone had come along and decided to take advantage of the situation.

Luckily, someone decent found me.

As I drifted into unconsciousness, I could feel strong hands pulling me up, and carrying me to safety.

---

The little house was lost in an eerie silence, the lone figure sat by the window, contemplating the last few days. With a sigh, he bowed his head, closing his eyes a little. When he looked up, he noticed a blood-drenched young woman crawling into the cobbled main square of Alexandria, trembling uncontrollably. She looked around helplessly, before dropping to the floor in exhaustion. The young man jumped to his feet and ran out of the front door, going over to aid this girl.

She was horribly wounded, a heavily bleeding gunshot wound was in her right leg, while there were all sorts of cuts and bruises all over her body. Her beautiful golden hair was matted with dark red blood, stuck to the side of her head with the sticky liquid.

He didn't know what to think. From the torn clothes, she could have been a rape victim, but where would the gunshot wound have come from? Had she been mugged? If so, then why were there so many injuries? He decided to lend a hand, lifting her up into his arms and carrying her back into the house.

He cleaned her up a bit, wiping the excess blood away from her body, slowly healing the wounds with white magic. When he was happy with her status, he laid her down into his bed, and pulled up a chair, watching her slow deep breathing as he took a quick rest.

---

I slowly opened my eyes, the incredible mind-numbing pain in my body had now passed into a mild ache, and I realised that I was lying in a rather comfortable bed, in a warm friendly house. I blinked a few times, looking at the man who was sat up sleeping on a wooden chair beside the bed.

His hair was silver in colour, filled with unruly curls that never wanted lay straight. His face looked cold and forbidding, but she could sense a warmth deep down inside of him. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt, which seemed a little too short, exposing his slender stomach. He was wearing thick black crumpled pants, torn in places from either heavy use or battle damage. On the back of the chair was slung a black long coat, something looked as though it was made of leather, but was smoother than that. To my shock, I could see two gleaming handguns in the holsters that were loosely attached to the back.

The house itself was quite plain, an empty bookcase stood forlornly in the far corner, a battered-looking sofa lay in the middle of what looked like the living room. The bed that she was lying in was sat by the window, showing a beautiful view of the sun slowly rising over the horizon, filling this tiny house with a dazzling light.

She noticed a desk against one of the walls, and on it sat a single photo frame, which contained a frayed damaged looking picture. It showed a group of young men and women, standing in the middle of what seemed to be some sort of hallway, furnished with a deep red wallpaper. I looked at each one from left to right, trying to determine who they were.

On the far left, there was a beautiful black haired woman wearing a black shoulderless top, held closely by a dark blonde haired youth, swathed in a deep blue cloak of some sort. Further to the right stood two men, one wearing almost entirely white, except for a simple black bandana that covered up his hair. His emerald green eyes were outlined by a pair of silver glasses. The other was wearing deep red and black armour, arms folded impatiently against his chest, his hair a combination of auburn and ginger, cut relatively short. He was holding a large pole with what looked like a sword blade stuck on the end. Next to them stood a young girl, beautiful curly locks of golden brown hair fell from her head, her bright blue eyes focused on the origin of the picture. She wore a simple purple top, and fading blue denim jeans. The man next her was dressed in white clothing, although his choice of clothes exposed much more skin than the others, a pale slender chest and stomach on show, his arm around the girl's waist, pulling her in closer. His hair was a dazzling silver, and his eyes were a deep blue, looking so easy to get lost in. Before she could try and figure out who these people were, she sensed movement from the man sat on the chair.

"I see you're awake." I heard him mutter, his eyes opening to reveal a beautiful dash of blue, vibrant like ice.

"Thanks for saving me last night." I could feel my cheeks heat up slightly, and he just nodded humbly.

"Feel like telling me what happened?" I opened my mouth, but there was a sudden knock at the door. He rolled his eyes and stood up, checking at the window before opening the door carefully.

Outside, the was an official-looking man wearing what seemed to be some sort of army officer's coat, light grey in colour, with a furry dull collar. There were two guards flanking him, both wearing grey camouflage uniforms, armed with rather vicious-looking rifles.

"Sorry to disturb you, but we have information that a highly dangerous criminal is at this residence." The man looked behind him at the innocent looking girl who was sat up on the bed, a brief look of fear across her gentle features. If she was a highly dangerous criminal, he'd eat someone's hat.

"Looks like you've got the wrong place gentlemen." He turned back to the officer, to see that the two guards seemed to be toying with their weapons quite alarmingly. He kept his cool though. He'd talked his way out of thousands of situations.

"Would you mind if we searched your residence?"

"Why of course I would." This seemed catch the officer off guard.

"Pardon?"

"In fact, I'd much appreciate it if you left." He paused for a second. "Right now." He added menacingly. The two guards suddenly pointed the guns directly at his chest. He sighed. "I can see this being another long day." He muttered, before flicking his hands up, knocking the two rifles away from his body, before pointing a palm straight at them and sending them flying backwards with crackling arcs of electricity. They were already dead on impact with the floor, and he left them in the middle of the street, before quietly closing the door and sitting back down.

"Looks like someone wants you badly. That had to be the most sad excuse I have ever heard a official come out with." He sniggered, "Highly dangerous criminal. Classic." I was shocked out of my mind completely. He had just killed three people, and had shrugged it off as if it was nothing. I had accidently killed three people, and even now I still felt sick inside.

"Who were they?"

"Oh, they're some guys from the lab across the plains. They don't have much power within Alexandria. Hell, the Queen wasn't exactly pleased with them building that thing in the first place, but there wasn't really much she could do about it. She couldn't have done anything without inadvertently triggering innocent bloodshed, so it's still there." I bit my lip. Should I tell him that I had come from there? He'd been kind enough to look after me, so it was only fair. I explained what had happened in as much detail as I could, and by the end of it, he had a deep thoughtful expression on his face.

"So you don't remember anything?"

"Nope."

"Not even your name?"

"A scientist told me my name was Eve Andrews, and I can't think of any reason why he would lie about that." He studied my expression, before shrugging.

"Well Eve, my name's Joachim Tribal." He paused mid-sentence. "If you don't remember anything, then you won't remember what's happened around here, will you?" I shook my head. I didn't even know where "here" was. I only knew it's name, and that was Alexandria. What planet was I on? Did I have a family? I didn't know anything.

"Can you tell me?" He shook his head.

"I could do, but it wouldn't be from the best of sources. I know someone who could explain in more detail, but it's quite a bit of a trek." He checked me out, his eyes moving up and down my body. "You'll need some new clothes too." Suddenly, there was a scream from outside. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I hope you can act too, because we have to be a little shocked with the fact there are now three corpses on our doorstep." I nodded. I didn't need to act, I was already shocked enough as it was.

---

Styx wasn't pleased at all. He stood by the doorway to the testing labs, reading the reports from the recent escape at the Alexandria lab. One of his most precious specimens had escaped, somehow managing to wake up during the implantation procedure. He sighed, frustrated at the recent turn of events. If anything went wrong now, that would be twenty years of work down the drain. He was however happy with the eyewitness accounts of how she had escaped. She was a fighter alright, it appeared whatever they had managed to put in her head before she had woke up had gone to good use.

He looked into the testing lab, at the complex piece of machinery sat right in the centre of the room. It looked like a large perfect glass sphere, surrounded by four lithe curved metal bars. That device was the second most important piece in his plan, and it still wasn't working correctly. He sighed again and looked at the single scientist sat working away on one of the panels, his lab coat crumpled from sleeping under the desk. If Styx had a heart, he would have sent him home for a rest.

But he didn't have a heart, so he kept that man working until his nerves were more frayed than the fuse on a stick of dynamite. His blonde hair was all over the place, sticking out in odd directions from a bad case of bed hair.

"Rin, get up here. I need to have a word with you." Styx noticed him recoil from the words, almost as though they had just slapped him across the face. He shuffled up the stairs up to him, pushing his silver-rimmed glasses up his nose nervously.

"W-what is it?"

"I see from from these reports that there is a rather large lack of success in the recent tests." Rin cringed.

"Well, you see...it's errrm..." He tried to find an excuse for why the machine wasn't working.

"Don't bother trying to make any excuses. I know exactly why it isn't working. It's because the person working on it keeps falling asleep every five minutes."

"I'm sorry." Styx had a rather nasty streak of killing any employees that didn't meet the standard he was looking for, but this one was far too important to be killed so trivially.

"Go home. The schedule's been set back anyway, so you can get some rest." Rin looked shocked.

"T-thank you very much!" He stuttered. He shuffled away and out of the lab. Styx looking back down at the machine and smiled. Perhaps all these years had begun to take a toll on him, maybe he was growing a heart after all. His hand flung out and splattered a moth that had been resting for a moment on the wall.

Or perhaps not.

* * *

Hmmm, mysterious no? Okay, maybe not, but it will heat up a bit eventually. Until then, keep checking back for updates, and don't forget to review.

Ciao

Chris


	3. Chapter Two: Dreams

Disclaimer: Check the previous installments, and if you have any queries, then don't hesitate to contact me on the e-mail address provided in my profile. I'll rip your ankles off if you steal any of my ideas without my say so!

A/N: Hey there! Got another chapter for ya! I've not really much else to say, other than enjoy!

* * *

_**Chapter 2: Dreams**_

After very kindly getting me some clothes, Joachim and I headed out to some place called Burmecia. Apparently it lay to the west of Alexandria, just over a mountain range, so it would be quite a trek. However, before we left, we paid a small visit to a tiny graveyard just on the outskirts of Alexandria. I couldn't quite see why we were here, before I saw him standing forlornly in front of a small grave. I went over to him, taking in the surrounding landscape. It was getting to late autumn now, the trees slowly becoming more and more bare in the dying days of the year. It seemed as though they were on fire, dazzling arrays of reds, oranges, and browns, hanging limply from the trees, or covering the ground in a thick crackling coat. The sun was high in the sky, beating down on us with a general warmth, and yet there was a chill in the air, possibly of the approaching winter.

"Who's that?" I looked down at the grave.

"It's my mother." I suddenly felt guilty about mentioning it.

"Sorry."

"It's alright, you couldn't have known."

"What happened?" I inquired.

"She died bringing me into this world, alone and forgotten."

"But surely your father was around?" He gave a quick dry laugh.

"My father abandoned my mother before I was even born. I can't even visualise their faces. The only clue I have to who they were is this picture." He held out the picture I had seen sat on the desk, it's edges cracked and aged. "It was given to me when I was younger by a young man, some sort of knight or paladin or something like that. He told me that the people I was growing up with were not my real parents, and he explained to me what had happened." He looked at the picture again. "He never told me his name, and he disappeared soon after."

"I don't even remember if I have any parents, let alone what they look like." I added. He smiled at me.

"I guess that's a fate we share then, isn't it?" Looking for one final time at the lonely grave, it's name and dates long since eroded by the elements, we turned to leave. I could make out a few things, a few odd letters and numbers, but nothing that could give me any conclusive information. I felt unbelievably sorry for Joachim, it was no way for a child to grow up without any parents.

---

The mountain air was quite chilly and refreshing as we made our way past the North Gate, the snow topped mountains shone in the sunlight. I wasn't exactly equipped for such a journey, wearing a long black dress that went all the way down to my ankles, and a thin black blouse that fluttered a bit in the breeze. I was managing quite well though, barely getting anything caught on rocks or any other pointy objects.

Wait a second, there hadn't been a breeze a moment ago.

I scanned the bright skyline, and noticed a large black flapping object heading straight towards us. As it grew larger, it seemed to be not an object, but a shadow, absorbing the light around it in a way that made it stand out in the bright blue clear skies. It seemed to notice us, changing direction slightly and speeding up.

"Uh, Joachim? What's that?" He turned around, his eyes following my finger.

"That...isn't good." He explained. "It's a Shadow, cheeky buggers to say the least. Made up entirely of darkness, with no actual form, they can change their bodies at will to suit the situation."

"What are we going to do then?" I asked.

"Knock it out of the sky, what else did you think?"

"But it might just be passing by! We can't kill an innocent animal!" I was totally against unnecessary killing, after smashing up those three innocent people back at the lab. Unfortunately for us, it suddenly swooped down, brandishing sharp looking claws at us, emitting a deafening shriek.

"You still think it's innocent?" He asked, whipping out the two handguns from his back and opening fire, the shots echoing all across the mountains. Each bullet hit it's target, smashing thick blots of black mist off it's body, but still it flew at us, it's wings flapping wildly as it slowed itself down and swooped in to attack. I dived roughly to the floor, gasping as the impact knocked the wind out of me. I felt my head suddenly start to ache, each heartbeat caused it to throb unnervingly. A look of concentration crossed Joachim's face as he put away one pistol and aimed carefully with the other as the Shadow swung around, preparing to attack again. When Joachim pulled the trigger, a burst of bright purple light shot out, bursting straight into the approaching demon, blowing it into a thick cloud of black smoke before slowly dissipating.

However, my head refused to calm down, throbbing painfully as I clasped at it, moaning in agony.

---

_It was pretty dark, but I could faintly see two people outlined in the pale moonlight shining in through the window, that seemed to be covered in some form of white net, like a crudely made spider web, embroidered with flowery patterns. I recognised the two people vaguely from the old photograph that Joachim had shown me, the blonde haired cloaked man, and the black haired girl. The young man seemed to be gazing out of the window into the moonlight with a worried look._

"_Worried about the others?" I heard the girl say, and he nodded slowly._

"_These are rough times Melissa, anything could happen to them, or us for that matter." He explained. His voice seemed so familiar, like a long forgotten memory. This thought from the man seemed to strike home with Melissa, because she bit her lip nervously. It looked almost as if she wanted to say something, but was almost afraid to do so. The man seemed to notice this. "What's wrong?" He asked her._

"_There's something I have to tell you, but I'm afraid of what it might mean." He blinked in confusion._

"_Like what?" She seemed to be thinking something over, before suddenly leaning forwards and giving him a lingering kiss._

"_That." He gently grabbed around the back of the head, pulling her in closer for a repeat._

"_You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to say that." With those last words they fell against each other, a great passion let loose. It was enough to make me blush._

_---_

"Hey, you alright in there?" I heard Joachim's voice pierce my reverie. I slowly opened my eyes, looking right back into his.

"What happened?"

"You fainted. Are you alright?"

"I just had a weird dream, that's all."

"Strange time to have a dream, up on these here mountains?"

"Well, it _was_ a strange dream. Strange dreams happen in strange places, right?" I was quite rightly confused about the dream I just had. Why had I seen those two specific people? Was it some kind of longing in my head, or was it a memory lost long ago?

"Okay, I'm going to just sit here and look confused for a bit." He sat on a rock and stared at me in such a funny way that I had to laugh.

"C'mon, let's get moving. I don't fancy being up here when it goes dark." I looked at the sun, which had slowly made it's way over to the east, preparing to begin it's descent into darkness.

"What's the matter? Scared?"

"Would you subject a lady like myself to a night in the cold dark mountains? There'd better be something to keep me warm." He feigned some mock surprise.

"Was that a flirt I just detected?" I laughed once again. Joachim was quite funny once you penetrated that outer layer of coldness. I played along.

"Maybe. You might find out when we reach Burmecia."

"Well if that's the case, we'd better get a move on, hadn't we?" We carried on down the mountain path, to the city covered in deep grey clouds up ahead.

---

The rain was incredibly chilling. I just hoped that as the downpour continued, that my blouse wouldn't start revealing things I'd rather keep under wraps. Joachim seemed to notice this, and swung off his long coat, popping it around my shivering cold body. His silvery loose curls were plastered to the side of his head, giving him the appearance of a drowned kitten, water running down his face and dripping off his nose as he guided me into the foreboding city of Burmecia.

"Burmecia, land of eternal rain." Joachim explained. I could guess that someone would find this place rather beautiful, but that someone wasn't me. It had a certain soaking charm to it, but I couldn't quite find why someone would want to live in a place where it constantly rained.

He led the way down dark dripping streets to a small house on the very outskirts of the town. It looked kind of run down, the roof beginning to cave in under the pressure of the immense amounts of water falling upon it, the walls were covered in a heavy moss, and the front door looked quite battered.

"Who would live in a place like this?" I whispered to him. He knocked quite smartly on the door, and it suddenly swung open, revealing a wild-haired middle aged man, his terrified grey eyes peering out from behind steamed up glasses, wearing a crumpled up lab coat over an old crinkled white shirt.

"Ah!" He shouted in surprise. "Who are you, what do you want?"

"Relax Rin, it's me, remember?"

"Joachim? Oh thank the heavens! I thought you were someone else." He looked at me, a faint sign of recognition on his face, but that soon passed into another confused look. "Who's your friend?" He asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose with shaking fingers.

"It's a long story, can we come in?"

"Why certainly!" He guided us into his tiny house. For what it looked like on the outside, the inside was a heck of a lot better. It was quite cosily furnished, a simple red sofa sat in the middle of the room, with a small coffee table in front of it, scattered with complicated diagrams and thick books. There was a little fireplace burning away, shedding a light warmth on my frigid soaked body. There was a crooked staircase leading up into the upper parts of the house, but from the way the roof had seemed, it wouldn't be in too good a condition up there.

"Sorry about the mess, I haven't had guests in quite a while." Rin explained, grabbing two old frayed towels off the bannister and handing them to us. Thankfully, we dried ourselves off, while he tried in vain to clear the mess up off the table. He picked a single book up, and tried to find another place to put it, but settled for putting back on the teetering pile that he had just picked it up from, which instantly toppled off the table.

"How have you been holding out then?" Joachim asked, and Rin shrugged.

"Ah, just surviving basically. The work at the lab's been interesting recently, but I haven't had much rest in a while." Joachim nodded. "So what brings you to this God forsaken dump?"

"Well, my friend here has a little problem." He indicated to me. I began to explain the situation, including what had happened so far to me, and what I could remember. After the explanation, he sat down on the battered sofa, holding his chin in his hand, a look of deep thought across his face.

"Hmm, from the Alexandria lab, you say? I'd heard there'd been an escape attempt, but I thought you'd been killed in the process?"

"She wasn't looking too good when I found her." Joachim added.

"Indeed. This is most interesting. The Alexandria branch works on neurological defects and testing, so it wouldn't surprise me if you'd had some sort of accident, and they were working on your mind when you woke up." He paused for thought. "Mind you, that wouldn't explain your abilities. You're definitely a black mage, if it happened as you described it. However, the experience at the window, that's a little harder to explain." He vanished into thought again.

"What could it be?"

"Unless...no, that's impossible, they died out over twenty years ago." He was mumbling to himself.

"Unless what?" Joachim asked. Rin resurfaced, examining me closely, his grey eyes filled with curiosity.

"Can you describe that green glow to me, the one you saw over Alexandria?"

"Well, it was a gentle green glow, like there were a thousand green lanterns glowing out of the place."

"That sounds like the Sight to me, but I can't imagine how you ended up with that..."

"The Sight?"

"The world we live in is split into two. The one we experience is the Material Realm, the land of the living. The other is the Spiritual Realm, where the very essence of our life goes after we die, our conciousness...our soul if you like."

"So I saw the land of the dead back there?"

"It seems that way. The only other people with those skills were the Spiritseers, but they were wiped out in a great war twenty years ago. They had such a grand city, Zion it was called. I visited it once, back in my younger days."

"How did you get there if it was in the other realm?"

"My parents were Spiritseers, and yet I failed to pick up their gift in my genes. They took me there once when I was youngster, such a beautiful place. The architecture was simply magnificent, the buildings appeared to be made of a fine crystal. Their technological prowess was simply astounding, they had all sorts of futuristic gear, an amazing spacestation sat high in the heavens, watching over us." He looked down at the table in nostalgia. "I'd give anything to see that place one more time."

"So what happened to it?"

"It was mostly razed to the ground in the war. All that remains there now are ruins, a devastated shell of the magnificent city it used to be. My parents died in that war, and I dedicated my life to reverse-engineering all of the technology they left behind, in the effort that one day this world could be just as magnificent as that place was."

"Must have been terrible, losing your parents like that." I whispered.

"Yes, it was a soul crushing despair after I lost them. However, there's some things you just have to get over." He smiled weakly, before shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "I remember that war as if it was yesterday. The whole place was silently hoping that the prophecy about six young saviours would come true. Unfortunately for them, it didn't. I think even today there's only two of those six still alive. I believe you have already met one of them Joachim."

"I have?"

"Yes, a young paladin, very high ranking in Alexandria. I suppose if you had a word with the Queen, she'd probably point you in the right direction. Of course, two of those six are very crucial to you too, since they are your parents. Or should I say, _were_."

"So my father's dead too? Good, I didn't want that scum to live anyway." Rin looked a little shocked at this outburst, but suddenly realised why.

"You still think he betrayed your mother?"

"Of course. That maggot ran off and left her to die all alone. If he hadn't have left her, she'd probably still be alive. I'd have had a life, a family, instead of being this lonesome individual with no future." I felt unbearably sorry for him. It must have been hard on him, knowing that one man was the reason he'd been miserable for his entire life.

"What about me? Do you have any idea who I could be?" I asked the trembling scientist.

"I'm sorry, but I don't. Maybe this individual in Alexandria will know?" He looked out of the window at the pouring rain, gazing into the distance. "It's a little too late to go back to Alexandria now, why don't you stay the night?"

"Thanks, you're sure we won't be too much of a burden?" Joachim asked, and Rin shook his head quickly.

"Of course not, it'll be my pleasure. It's been so long since I've had guests. You may have to sleep on the floor though, the roof fell in a few weeks ago and the upper floor is completely wrecked now." I nodded.

"Thanks anyway."

---

_I awoke in a room filled with a most blessed light, a chamber with the smoothest of metal walls, and in the centre sat a small glowing orb, from which the light came. _

_I felt confused. Where was I? Was this another dream? Suddenly I became aware of two figures in the room, standing face to face barely metres apart. It was that couple I had seen in the previous dream, only this time it was different. There was no love in this scene, only an intense hatred._

"_Let him go!" The woman, who I assumed was called Melissa, shouted angrily. Let who go?_

"_Ah yes, love, one of the weaker emotions you humans have. You can't strike me can you? Too scared to hurt him?"_

"_Shut up!"_

"_That's a real pity." I suddenly noticed he was holding a thin sword, it's golden ornate hilt glinting in the calm light from the orb in the middle of the room. "Because I wouldn't hesitate for a second to kill you." He swung this blade towards her, and she moved one of the short bladed butterfly daggers to deflect it. I gasped in shock as the blade simply cut through this as though it was paper, slicing past her defence and straight into her chest, sending a thin splatter of blood against the shiny silver wall. She staggered for a second, clutching at the horrific gash in her chest, before falling onto her back. The demonic young man stepped closer, switching his grip on the blade, and drove it down straight through her chest, pinning her to the floor._

_I wanted to jump in and start kicking him, to throw him away from her. But I was but an observer, only able to watch in horror as he observed her die, a sick and twisted grin on his face. Her body jerked a few times, her rapid gasps of breath echoed across the chamber before she finally fell still, blood dribbling from her lips._

"_Weak pathetic fool." He muttered, slowly drawing the blade out of her chest with a sickening slurp. _

_I began to see a conflict on his face, something else. Was it sadness? He walked over to the orb in the centre of the room, it's beautiful light highlighting his dark blue cloak. He raised the blade above his head, and his hands suddenly began trembling, changing in their grip slightly. Suddenly, he brought the blade down into his own stomach, the other end of the sword poking out through his back, dripping with dark red blood. He gritted his teeth in agony before removing the sword, and throwing it down on the floor, until only the hilt stuck out, and then struck it from the side, snapping it off in one fell blow. The blade disappeared into the ground, leaving only a small slit in the metal surface of the floor. He fell forwards, groaning in his unbearable pain._

"_If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." He muttered, before kissing the cold cheek of the woman laying beside him, and falling still, leaving the room in a deathly silence._

---

I jerked awake, gasping in shock, before realising that I was still in the old house, in complete darkness. I felt two strong arms wrap around me from behind. I heard Joachim's whispers, hushing me and calming down. I felt tears running down from my eyes. Why was I being plagued by such horrible dreams? Why me?

---

Joachim held the shuddering girl until he felt her drift back into slumber. Why did he pity her so? What was it about her that was so different to the rest of the planet's population? He let go of her, gently placing her back on the makeshift bed of a duvet cover and a pillow on a few cushions, watching her chest gently rise and fall in the near total darkness. He'd give anything to forget what had happened in his life, his career choice had left him with many emotional scars, yet not many physical ones. I guess that was one of the downsides of a lack of decent parenting. Yet here lay an innocent young woman, her past erased, helpless in the present, a undetermined future. Maybe it was an instinct, but he couldn't let anything else terrible happen to her. She was almost like a child, completely helpless. He laid down on his own makeshift bed, watching her stir a little, before drifting off to sleep himself.

* * *

Please read and review peeps! Sorry for it being a little later than usual, I've had a lot on my mind recently.

Cheerio

Chris


	4. Chapter Three: Hunted

Disclaimer: Check the previous installments, and if you have any queries, don't hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile. Any thieves who decide they want to use anything I own without my permission will be shot. If they survive, I'll jump on them, and continue to jump on them until I can think of something worse to do to them.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews (and my first piece of fan-mail ), I really appreciate people who review, like Mistress Manga and Salyriad, so follow the example people! Nothing much else to say. XD

* * *

_**Chapter 3: Hunted**_

I looked out of the battered doorway at the rainy landscape. For now, it had descended into a light drizzle, but it was still raining nonetheless, the odd shaft of light piercing through the thick cloud cover, like a blade through grey fabric.

"Thanks for having us." Joachim thanked Rin. He shrugged.

"I can only hope I was of some assistance. If you find that young man in Alexandria, you should find the key to your past." We nodded almost in unison, and thanked him again before heading out into the fine rain, beginning on our way back to Alexandria.

The rain was quite refreshing, unlike the chilling downpour the night before. As we wandered along, I became aware of a humming sound far above us, growing in frequency as it approached.

"That doesn't sound good." Joachim muttered, and we began to speed up. It was at that point I turned to see what it was making the noise as it slowly emerged from the cloud cover. It was some sort of aircraft, entirely black in colour, it's wings flayed out downwards at an angle, instead of the usual horizontal fashion. On the side near to what I assumed was the bridge was a small logo depicting two golden figures holding hands.

"What is that thing?" I asked Joachim.

"It's a Valkyrie, standard troop transport for the Gemini."

"The Gemini?"

"They took over things when the war ended twenty years ago, it's supposedly led by the children of the guy who kicked off the last war. Either way, they're not the kind of people you get into a conversation with. If one of those things is after you, then it's pretty obvious they want you dead." It descended slowly, like a shadow across the sky, hovering down close to the roofs of some of the houses nearby. I felt the breeze across my face, watching as it whipped the drizzle around in spiralling patterns in the air.

"Should we start running?"

"That might be a good idea." We turned and ran, and it started to chase us, slowly pulling above us. I saw hatches open on it's underside, and I heard the resounding click as Joachim readied his handguns, pointing them towards the hatches while continuing to run headlong down the narrow roadway, our feet splashing through large muddy puddles that had formed in the road.

Suddenly, I caught my first glimpse of these so-called Gemini, and they looked quite simply terrifying. It had appeared at the hatch, readying itself to abseil down onto us. It wore deep purple armour all over it's body, it's head protected by a thick helmet adorned with all sorts of technological gadgets. It held a long barreled rifle, also adorned with scopes and ammunition holders. It began to abseil down, but it's flight was instantly cut short by a burst of fire from Joachim's pistols. It jerked violently and fell away from the rope, hitting the soaked ground with a crunch. With great horror, I saw that more were emerging from the other hatches, sliding down on the ropes to the ground, some getting cut down by gunfire, others making it down to earth and readying their weapons. I dived to the floor to avoid a burst of fire from one of the soldiers, which instead hit a window nearby, spreading shattered glass all over the place. One of the soldiers that had recently touched down had golden additions to his armour, and I assumed that this was some sort of higher ranking soldier, probably a sergeant. Now I heard the voice of a Gemini, and it was quite horrifying.

"Take the girl alive, kill the other one." He ordered simply, his voice a deep rasping snarl. The nearby soldiers nodded, and two of them headed advanced on me menacingly, while the others chased Joachim further down the road. I scrabbled along the floor, sliding backwards until I felt my back hit a cold stone wall, my body now completely soaked with the constantly falling rain. Joachim ducked into an alleyway to take cover, occasionally returning fire before having to hide again from the sheer amount of bullets heading his direction, blowing chunks off the stone wall he was hiding behind.

Meanwhile, one of the two soldiers that made their way over to me grabbed me roughly by the arms, pinning them against my body. I suddenly began to feel incredibly weak, my struggles getting more and more feeble.

"Help!" I gasped as loud as I could, hoping that someone could hear me, anyone. It almost felt as if it was sucking the life out of me, my breathing began to get more and more strangled. At that very moment, I felt my hands begin to tingle familiarly, and suddenly the leg of the Gemini who had grabbed me set of fire. He yelped and let go, and I dropped to the floor weakly, before realising that the soldier had also dropped his rifle.

Without thinking, I grabbed it, pointing it at the soldier, my hands trembling with fear. My head began to hurt again, and I felt some sort of auto pilot take over my body, pulling the trigger and hitting the soldier squarely in the face. It dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, blood pouring out of the mangled mess that had once been it's face. Without even hesitating for a moment, I swung the rifle around and took out the other soldier, the weapon shuddering while firing, bullets stitching it's way up it's body, sending fragments of armour everywhere, dropping it down to the ground, rolling in agony.

My heart was beating so fast that I thought it would explode any second. What had just happened? I didn't know how to use one of these things, so how did I just kill two soldiers in such a cold and professional manner? I didn't wait for too long to think, the pressure of battle going on behind me. I still felt drained from that monster grabbing me, my eyesight wobbling slightly as I struggled to stay concious as I turned the lethal looking rifle on it's previous masters.

---

Joachim popped his head around the corner for a quick look at what was going on. What was Eve doing with a SPB-600? The only people trained to use those things were Gemini soldiers, and she certainly didn't look like one of those. He watched as she proceeded to shoot two more soldiers down, before collapsing to the floor, her face pale and drawn, resting on one hand. Joachim ducked out into the open, firing off some more rounds into the unsuspecting soldiers. They were now being attacked from both sides, and were getting utterly wiped out. Before long, all that remained was the Valkyrie, which itself proceeded to retreat, it's deadly cargo now expended, shooting off into the cloudy skies. Quickly, he ran over to the ailing girl, grabbing her and checking her for any injuries.

"Hey, keep those eyes open, alright?" He told her, finding no physical injuries whatsoever. "Did one of them grab you?"

"Yeah." She gasped out, pain creasing her features.

"Just breath with me. It'll be the shock from being touched that's causing all this. Gemini soldiers are infused with Wraith DNA, so that one will have been trying to draw enough of your soul out so you wouldn't put up a fight. You should recover in a bit." He explained. She nodded shakily, before falling unconscious. She would be fine, she just needed a bit of rest. Joachim had had enough experience with injuries caused by wraiths. After all, there was a reason why he always wore gloves.

---

"I swear I'm fine, really!" I protested. I still felt a little dizzy from the shock, but it would pass. We were now out of Burmecia and well on our way back to Alexandria. I was just glad that it had stopped raining, the gentle rays of warmth from the sun dried my body quite quickly. Joachim still looked a little worried, but I waved it off. I'd live, I knew that much.

"I'd feel a lot more at ease if you just took a rest."

"Look, I want to meet this paladin fellow in Alexandria, and if we rest, we won't get there before nightfall. I'll be fine, don't worry about me." I put him at ease.

"If you insist. Wraiths are a force to be reckoned with. They can suck out your entire soul in less than a minute, leaving your body an empty shell. If you're lucky, the shock of having your spirit removed will kill you. If you aren't, then you become nothing more than a zombie, incapable of thought or emotion."

"So why can the Gemini do that kind of stuff then?"

"Like I said, they have the Wraith gene code infused into their own."

"And how would you know so much about Wraiths and the such?"

"Because I happen to be part-wraith myself." Eve was shocked.

"You had _that_ done to you?"

"No, I was born with it. My mother was part-wraith too, I guess I picked it up from her."

"It must suck, not being able to touch people."

"I can control it, as long as nothing interrupts my concentration. Have you ever heard of a vampire?"

"Blood sucking creatures of the night?"

"Wraiths are the spiritual versions of vampires. Our souls degenerate over time, and only by sucking the souls out of others can we replenish it."

"So you do that to people? Suck them dry? Leave them as practically corpses?"

"It's possible to only sip at a person's soul, but it can still be quite risky, especially if they get a little carried away." I shrugged.

"Well that's re-assuring. Remind me to be careful around you." He raised his hands, showing the black leather gloves he was wearing.

"Why do you think I wear these?" We continued trekking, the cold mountain air slowly being replaced by a slightly more humid feel.

"So why were those Gemini things after us?" I asked.

"Probably because of you, but I'm not so innocent either."

"Why, what did you do?"

"I'm a mercenary, I get into dubious activities. It's my job."

"So we're both being hunted, eh? Looks like things are going to get a little interesting then." I can see the distant sword-like spire glinting in the sunlight, and I knew we weren't far away now.

---

We slowly walked up the grand steps of Alexandria Castle, and I stood gazing at the magnificent building in awe. It was truly a brilliant piece of work, the shining sword-like crystal in the very centre refracted the sun's blazing light everywhere. It was built out of the finest of white stone, carved beautifully and lovingly by experienced architects.

As we approached the giant wooden doors that led into the castle itself, two female guards dressed in red armour stepped forwards, their hands on the hilts of their swords in preparation. Joachim slowly pulled out the two handguns, unloading the clips and holding them barrel-first in a sign of peace.

"State your purpose." One of the guards asked suspiciously.

"We seek an audience with her Highness." The two guards looked at each other and had to stifle a laugh.

"And what makes you think she'll want to listen to you?"

"Well, you can find out for yourself when you tell her that the son of one of the grand heroes of the great war is here to see her."

"You really expect us to believe that?"

"Why wouldn't you?" A gentle educated voice came from behind them. We all turned to see a beautiful woman, now well into her middle-ages, yet still looking utterly magnificent in a silky white dress, her chocolate brown hair cut short.

"Your majesty! We were just dealing with..."

"The son of one of the six heroes who saved the entire universe. I'd mind if you treated him with a bit more respect." The two guards were completely gobsmacked.

"With all due respect, my Queen, but how were we to know?"

"Let me ask you. How many young men do you know in this world that have a tail, apart from my husband?" It was my turn to be shocked. I'd never even noticed, but sure enough, there was a long silvery tail between his legs, swaying gently from side to side. The two guards remained completely silent, one of them had a face that closely resembled that of a beetroot.

"I apologise." One of them whispered.

"I must admit, you've grown to resemble your father Joachim. Except your eyes, their definitely Samantha's."

"It's good to see that time has not degraded your beauty, or your intelligence, your majesty." He bowed, and she smiled.

"There's no need for that, your parents were good friends. What brings you here on this fine day then?"

"We're searching for one of the other heroes who travelled with our parents, on a quest of self-discovery. We heard that he was one of your highest ranking holy knights."

"Neil is off-duty today, spending some much overdue time with his family." She explained, giving us an address. "Who is your friend, by the way?"

"My name is Eve Andrews, it's an honour to meet you, your majesty." For a second, for one slight second, she seemed to lose her regal composure in sheer shock. Had I just said something wrong?

"Andrews? That's impossible..." She murmured in shock. She quickly regained her composure though, smiling. "Well, I wish you luck on your journey." She gave a little wave, and we both bowed before heading off back down the path towards the bustling town. I got closer to Joachim.

"What did I do wrong?" I whispered.

"I don't know, but something just shocked the living hell out of her. We'd better get to this Neil fellow and find out what the heck went on with my parents."

"I never noticed you had a tail." Did he just blush slightly?

"I usually keep it out of sight."

"You shouldn't, it really suits you." He looked at me in surprise.

"Really?"

"Would I lie?" He smiled warmly.

"I guess not. Alright, I'll leave it out for the time being." It looked so cute, it was highly tempting to pull on it and see what would happen. I quickly banished those thoughts to the back of my mind as we headed towards the address we had been given.

It was a humble house, nothing too fancy, but there was definitely an important feel to it. It was made out of the same kind of white stone as the castle, albeit the carvings. With just two floors, a few nicely decorated windows. All in all, it looked quite cosy. Nervously, we walked up to the door, Joachim knocking smartly three times and placing his hands behind his back, shifting his weight from foot to foot nervously.

Slowly, the mahogany door opened, revealing a small child with a shock of light blonde hair, a little tail hanging out of his pants, currently curled around his left leg. His eyes were shining little emeralds on his young face, and he was the very meaning of the word "cute". He took one look at us and turned back into the house.

"Daaaaaad! It's for you!" I heard a distant sigh, and slow footsteps. A middle-aged man came to the door, wearing a white shirt, slightly crumpled from being sat down, a silvery pair of glasses nestled over his deep green eyes, his hair dyed a bright blonde. The instant he clapped eyes on us, his jaw hit the floor.

"...Holy shit..." He muttered in shock. "You've grown."

"Hey! Don't swear in front of Sal!" I heard a distinctly feminine voice coming from within the house. He sighed.

"Alright!" He lowered his voice. "It's nothing he doesn't already hear in the playground. You'd better come in then, unless you fancy standing on the doorstep

"Sure." He guided us in, and sat us down on the clean deep red sofa. "I bet you've got a hell of a lot of questions."

"Yes, for a starter, what happened to you all in the war?" Neil looked up in nostalgia.

"I wish I could forget. Boy, did we fuck up. We got back to Earth alright, that's when things started to go horribly wrong. We all split up on our separate missions, I ended up coming back here to help out with the defence of Alexandria. Chris and Melissa went off to London to try and find a way to contact any survivors of Lazarus's first strike."

"Lazarus? I thought the leader of the Imaginary Numbers was a man called Draco?"

"Nah, he was possessed by Lazarus. Anyway, turns out that London is totally fucked up beyond all belief."

"What are these places you speak of?"

"What? Earth? Jeez, you really don't know jack, do you? Earth's the place where we came from in the first place, another world separate from Gaia. London is..._was_ the capital of a country called Britain."

"Another world? I thought that was just a legend?"

"Hell no, it exists alright. Well, it used to exist, the whole place got totally trashed up in the initial attack. Anyway, Samantha and Kuja, your parents, went off to look for her parents. They came back a little unsuccessfully, but something had definitely started between them. One of the other guys we hung around with, Bruce, was captured by the enemy, and possessed. We ended up having a fight, in which I killed him. Wasn't too pretty either. Ended up with this scar on my arm." He pulled back the sleeve on his shirt, revealing a long thin line that went all the way down his arm. Joachim pressed on.

"What happened to my parents then?"

"Well, the whole debacle with Chris getting possessed started. He blew up Halo, which was the only thing protecting Zion from an attack. Then he killed Melissa too, and ended up killing himself afterwards. That killed Lazarus, but it sure as hell didn't stop the massive army that was marching into Zion." I was confused about the whole thing. There were so many new terms being mentioned, I didn't even know where to start asking what they were.

"And my parents? I assume my scumbag father ran off at some point?" Neil looked quite shocked by this.

"Kuja? Run off? What the heck are you talking about?"

"He left my mother alone, the grief nearly killed both of us. That worthless worm left us both to die!"

"What? You have no idea what you're talking about! Kuja didn't run away, he did the exact opposite. He fucking _died_ to protect her!" Joachim stopped, completely still.

"He...he did what?"

"He sacrificed his life to keep both Sam and you alive! The only reason she died during childbirth is because she lost the will to live after he perished." I looked at Joachim, who now had a look of shocked guilt on his face. He'd thought all his life that his father had left them, where if he _had_ left them, he wouldn't be sat here today. He'd blamed Kuja for everything, and now he knew that none of this could have been his fault.

"How did he die?"

"The Imaginary Numbers attacked a hospital we were protecting, and they both stayed up on the roof. I didn't see exactly what happened, but Sam told me herself..."

---

"_Where are they all coming from!" Samantha shouted, desperately swinging the dark purple-bladed katana into any clone that came anywhere near her. Suddenly, the onslaught stopped, and all of the Imaginary Numbers stepped back to reveal two figures. One was Lethe, a half-crazed assassin, one of the five so-called "Children Of Erebus", her spirit flickering in the amber glow from the blaze that had engulfed the once grand city. The other was Acheron, sporting a long ornate arm-blade, a dark grin on his face._

"_Well well, I didn't expect either of you to have survived so long. As your pathetic race sometimes says, if you want a job doing right, you'd better do it yourself." He fired off a single shot that bounced off Kuja's protect spell with him barely expending any effort. Lethe threw herself at Sam, who desperately tried to block each blow that was being thrown at her. Before long, Ebony had emerged in all her dark glory, and was rapidly turning the tables on the assassin._

_Meanwhile, Kuja and Acheron fought, powerful spells were flung and dodged, some of them smashing into the clones that had formed a ring around them, blowing them clean off the roof in a blaze of magical energy. Kuja looked quite stunning with his long pure white clothes swishing around him as he dodged each blow being thrown at him, fighting back with incredible energy. Eventually, Kuja pulled off a wrong move, unintentionally allowing Acheron to slash him right across the chest. He hit the ground in agony, watching as Ebony defeated Lethe, and turned to see Acheron pointing his arm-blade straight towards her face. Time seemed to freeze. Kuja was too wiped out from the battle to cast any more spells, and looked around desperately for an answer to the problem. He suddenly noticed that Acheron was standing quite close to the edge of the roof, and an insane resolve possessed him. He launched himself to his feet with the last of his energy, and threw himself into the enemy, hurling both of them right over the edge._

_The wind whoosing past them intensely span them around erratically in the air as they fell closer and closer to the unforgiving ground._

"_You know what's funny, genome?"_

"_What?"_

"_I can just have a new body made. You can't. I win..." He moved the struggling genome in-between himself and the ground. "...you lose."_

_Smack._

_Both of them died the instant they hit the ground. However, Acheron left one final present buried in Kuja's chest: his blade-arm, which was designed not only to rend flesh and bone, but was also given the ability to cut through spiritual energy too. Kuja never stood a chance._

---

"You see what I mean? If Kuja hadn't have thrown himself at Acheron, Samantha would have received a rather nasty gunshot wound to the head, which would have instantly wiped both of you from the face of the planet. He sacrificed one life to save two." Neil explained. "Of course, Acheron still managed to squeeze off a shot before falling. However, it was knocked off aim, and only glanced her left cheek, but it left a scar. She never got over it. She simply lost the will to live."

"That's horrible..." I whispered. I think I was pretty much putting the "pity" section of my brain on full alert at the moment.

"What about Eve? Do you know anything about her?"

"Who? Her? What's the full name?"

"Eve Andrews." Neil completely and utterly froze.

"Y'know, that's a pretty wild coincidence. Melissa's last name was Andrews too." My heart jumped, could this mean what I thought it meant?

"Was she my mother?"

"Nah, couldn't be. Sure, she was pregnant, but Lazarus made sure the child was never born. You definitely have a resemblance though, I can see both Chris and Melissa in you."

"Isn't there a slight possibility?" I wasn't about to let this one small chance go down the drain. It may be the only link I had to the past.

"Well, we never found her body. When we checked out the Light Chamber, her blood was all over the place, but we only found Chris's body. She was definitely dead though. No-one could lose that amount of blood and live." He thought for a second. "Hmm, there might be one way to truly work it out." He went out of the room, only to return later with a small vial of purplish liquid.

"What's that?"

"Something I picked up in Zion. Drink up." I took it carefully, and downed the contents. It tasted quite sugary, and I suddenly felt a change come about. The room began to warp a little, and the two men in the room were suddenly surrounded by a glowing light. The one that surrounded Joachim was a deep purple, while the one that surrounded Neil was a light blue. Just as soon as it had began, it ended, and Neil was nodding in quiet surprise.

"I thought so. You're a spiritseer. That liquid was often used on seer children when their powers weren't waking up properly. It helps them wake up to their full potential." So that had been the Spiritual Realm? Even now I could still see a faint outline of their auras, glowing pale in the natural light.

"I thought they were all dead?" I questioned him, the whole turn of events was starting to get to me.

"If you're the child of two spiritseers, it's highly likely you'll pick up something. Dunno how you exist, but it looks like they really were your parents." I looked at Joachim, who was also gazing back at me. We were connected by fate, our parents had fought together, and had all died from the same reasons. Neil looked outside.

"Do you two want to stay the night? We've got a guest room upstairs, if you want." I would definitely need to sleep on all of this, the sheer amount of new stuff in my brain was starting to freak me out slightly. Even though Joachim's house was barely a few streets away, it would be dangerous for them there now that Gemini's were stalking them.

"If you would be so kind." He nodded, and looked into the other room.

"Mikoto? We've got some friends sleeping over." A pretty-looking woman came up to the doorway, wearing a simple red t-shirt. She was quite slender, rather acrobatic looking, and I noticed that she too had a tail, which was wrapping and unwrapping itself in a bored manner. She looked at Neil in a hopelessly frustrated manner, before noticing who it was that was sleeping over.

"Joachim? I thought you were dead?"

"Still alive and kicking." He stood up and gave her a friendly hug.

"Glad to see you stopped calling me "Aunt" now. I haven't seen you since you were this big." She placed her hand about mid-thigh height.

"I could start again, if you want me to."

"No thanks, it made me feel a little silly." She grabbed the little wild child by the back of the neck as he ran past. "I think it's time someone went to bed."

"But I'm not tired!" She sighed and waved her hand over his head, and he instantly fell asleep in her arms.

"Now you are." Joachim raised an eyebrow. "What? You really think that I didn't learn anything during my time at Black Mage Village?"

"No, I didn't think you'd cast Sleep on your own son though."

"He's a little hyper, gets it from his father."

"Hey! I heard that!"

"You were supposed to." She rolled her eyes and dragged the comatose child upstairs. How the heck those two had ended up together was beyond Joachim's comprehension, but as they say "opposites attract", and these two couldn't get any more opposite if they were the two poles on a magnet. As they all headed off to bed, Joachim couldn't help notice a quick flash outside the window, that of a spotlight. Things were going to get dangerous now that the Gemini were on their case. He just wondered what secrets were stored in Eve's head, things that these inhuman monsters were so keen to get their hands on.

---

I lay in the soft comfortable bed completely content, looking out the window at the crescent moon glowing pale in the twilight. At least I knew who my parents had been, even though they had died. I never even had the chance to get to know them. I wonder what they had been like? I nestled my head into the pillow, a smile crawling across my face. I felt myself drift off to sleep, but instead of the normal feeling I got when I slept, I suddenly felt myself slowly rising off the bed. I opened my eyes and looked down to see my sleeping form, my chest slowly rising and falling in a perfect rhythm. My first reaction was one of shock, why had I started to float above myself? Was this another gift that the Spiritseers had been given, the power of astroprojection?

I experimented for a while, trying to get a grip with the weightlessness that had gripped me. Eventually, I figured out that I could replicate how I would normally act, walking around on the floor and the like, yet I was able to lift off whenever I wanted to, propelling myself around at a mere thought. It was while I was buzzing around that I accidentally discovered that my new form could go through walls, inadvertently flinging myself into the next room, where Joachim was sleeping peacefully.

I must have floated there for about an hour, just watching him sleep. He'd been kind enough to help me when no-one else would. He'd saved my life on numerous occasions, and even though I had only known him for two days, I could feel something growing inside of me. Was I falling for him? He had such a cold exterior, yet once you penetrated that, there's was an incredible light-hearted feel to him. It was so alluring, his aura quietly flickering in his sleep. I stretched my non-existent arm out and touched this glow, before suddenly seeing a rapid montage of images in my mind's eye.

_A small lonely silver haired child, looking at the other kids frolicking with their parents, a mind filled with such an intense jealousy._

He suddenly jerked awake, and looked directly at me. I froze, unable to move from both embarrassment and shock. Had he seen me? He sat there for a few seconds outlined in the moonlight, gazing right through me, before shrugging and returning to his slumber. I breathed a sigh of relief, which was ultimately futile since I didn't have any lungs. Reluctantly, I floated back through the wall, drifting down and back into my sleeping body, feeling the familiar sensation of sleep, before blacking out completely.

* * *

One more down, another load to go. Shouldn't be too long...then again, anything could happen between now and then. Oh well, see you all later!

Chris


	5. Chapter Four: Blossom

Disclaimer: Read the other chapters, and if you have any queries, please don't hesitate to contact me on the e-mail address provided in my profile. Anyone caught stealing my ideas/concepts/characters will be killed on the spot, preferably with some sort of explosive device.

A/N: This chapter is special, because it was almost entirely written on a hill, in my private thinking spot. I would have uploaded it from there too, but I couldn't pick up a network all the way up there. Ah, the joy of having a laptop. XP

Anyway, this chapter does contain the _slightest_ hint of rape, but if you concentrate hard enough you won't even notice it. Things are going to start heating up from here on in, so get ready.

* * *

_**Chapter 4: Blossom**_

Over the next few nights, my dreams intensified, showing me often disturbing events, including some of the people I had come to know. I had begun to truly get a grasp on my new skills, now able to astro-project at will, and I had just about got the hang of traversing the boundary between realms. It was a truly mind-boggling experience to know that you have entered the world of the dead while still alive. Sometimes I had even seen those who had passed away, their ethereal outlines not that much different to the living. I did get a horrible feeling of loneliness though, knowing full well that I was the last spiritseer in existence, an intolerable sense of being solitary.

Joachim, on the other hand, and started to become a little more withdrawn. Not in the physical sense, he didn't exactly lock himself away, but he definitely seemed weaker as a person. He had grown increasingly pale over the past few days, but every time I asked him about this, he insisted that he was fine, and that it was nothing to worry about. However, this came to a head that day, while we were wandering around town. Both of us felt unable to impose ourselves upon Neil and Mikoto for very long, despite them insisting it would have been safer there. Suddenly, Joachim had collapsed, falling practically unconscious within seconds of falling. Determined to help, I had dragged him back to his small house, which had been no mean feat. I helped him onto his bed, his body trembling slightly. I noticed something that had awakened in the past few days, the new sense of spiritual essence that laid across my standard sight. His aura, which I had watched with growing interest over the previous days, was flickering alarmingly, at some points simply vanishing.

"Tell me what's wrong now." I demanded.

"I'm telling you, I'm fine!" He protested.

"Well it sure doesn't look it. What's going on!" He fell silent, almost if he was considering something. Finally, he nodded.

"Fine. I'm starving to death."

"But you've been eating normally, how could you be starving?"

"Let me rephrase that: Firenze is starving to death, so he's taking me with him."

"Who's Firenze?" His expression changed quite alarmingly, becoming something altogether more sinister.

"_Me. I'm the one stuck inside this godforsaken flesh bag." _His voice was much deeper, with a terrifying rasp to it, like a breath from the very depths of hell. It was quite unnerving to have a conversation with two people in one body.

"He's my other half, the wraith part of me. Remember how I told you they were like vampires?" It started to slowly sink in. I'd never seen Joachim (or Firenze, for that matter) ever use his wraith abilities, and I'd known him for about a week now. He shuddered again, his soul flickering in a very distressing manner.

"So, this Firenze fellow needs to feed for both of you to live?"

"Basically, yes." If nothing was done, then both of them would die. I sure as hell couldn't let that happen, he'd saved my life many times before, I owed him that much at least. But what could I do? Should I go outside and find some unsuspecting sap for him to drain dry? That would be sentencing that poor person to a fate worse than death. I had a plan formulating in my head, but the it wasn't the risk that was worrying me, it was the implications behind it. Was this really down to a simple blood debt, or was it something more?

After careful considerations lasting about thirty seconds, I decided to go for it. Taking his gloved hand in mine, I sat down beside him on the bed. Almost instantly he realised what I was about to do and shook his head.

"No, I can't. It could kill you."

"So you want me to sit here and watch you die instead?"

"If that's what it takes, yes. I've not exactly had much of life anyway, it's just been one agonising moment after another for me." I took a deep breath, in some sort of vain attempt to prepare myself for this.

"You said if you're careful, then it's perfectly safe."

"But there's no guarantee it will be."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Before he could say anything else I leant down, drawing his face as close as I could to mine, and gave him a metaphorical kiss of life. The instant our lips met, I felt the chilling drain across my entire body, within seconds I had grown so weak I could barely lift myself up, falling onto his trembling body. Determined, I held on, drawing on whatever reserves I had in my body to continue our passionate embrace. Through all the mind-bending pain I was suffering, I felt something connect between us. For one brief flickering second, I had felt something colossally amazing that left me in a strange state of joy, despite the fact I was having the very life sucked out of me.

Just as my vision started to fade, he grabbed me strongly and pulled us away from each other. I gasped for breath as the full agony of the moment kicked in, a massive void showing itself deep within my body. I vaguely felt one of my legs twitch, although my entire body was growing increasingly numb and chillingly cold.

"Are you crazy?" He asked, what he had just done was beginning to dawn on him. I tried to respond, but my body was refusing to co-operate with my commands, deciding to go into shock instead. In one quick movement, he had switched positions with me, laying me down and trying to keep me awake at the same time. I could feel my pulse starting to weaken, everything was starting to fade to black.

Joachim removed the black gloves he always wore, revealing the pale slender hands beneath, and unbuttoned my blouse a little, just so he could place his exposed hands on the spot right above my struggling heart. Through the freezing cold, I began to feel a slight warmth. My heart rate began to quicken, my senses slowly began to return to full life again. Before long, I was feeling much better, now able to move a little and think much more clearly. We were both out of breath, panting rapidly at the shock we'd given each other. His hands slowly, almost reluctantly, removed themselves from the spot just above my heart, and retreated back.

We sat there for what felt like an eternity, just gazing at each other. I began to think that maybe I had crossed the line.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"No. You did what you had to, and I thank you for that."

"I wasn't talking about the sacrifice." His expression clicked. He had a look of deep deliberation on his face, and I could feel my heart starting to pound against my ribcage, my stomach started to twist and untwist in the most painful fashion possible, my thoughts were racing through my head at about five thousand metres per second.

---

Joachim thought deeply, studying her crystal blue eyes carefully, taking in each and every little detail of her expression.

"_Go for it."_ He heard Firenze encourage him in his head.

"_I barely know her, it wouldn't be right."_

"_She practically just came onto you! This is the first time in...well, the first time that someone has been like this with you, and you're going to just ignore it?"_

"_I know why you want this so much, don't try and be devious."_

"_Well, you wouldn't really have a choice if I picked her, would you? Better to go voluntarily, in my opinion." _Joachim thought about this very carefully. Anyone he got involved with usually had a rather nasty habit of dying in an incredibly gory and/or painful fashion. He didn't want Eve to be next on that list.

---

There seemed to be some sort of inner conflict going on inside of him, as I watched barely able to breathe in suspense. He may want to protect me physically, but I had seen his dreams lately, and I was now aware that he needed protection from himself, from his inner demons. I couldn't stand by and watch as he tore himself apart.

I was about to speak but he placed his finger over my lips, and he leant forwards quickly, and we embraced passionately. I'd died and gone to Heaven.

---

Styx paced backwards and forwards along the luxuriously furnished room, almost fit for a king. The entire north wall was a colossal window, giving a panoramic view of the ruined metropolis far below, the life that had once filled every inch of the city now gone, leaving it a charred shell of the place it used to be. The light glow from the outside illuminated the deliberately darkened room, which was decorated in deep purple silk and a dark black glossy paint. There was an oak desk sat in front of the window, which stretched up to the distant ceiling. Apart from that, the room was despairingly desolate, it's walls bare.

He wasn't pleased, which was rapidly becoming a trend of late. He would have personally executed the commanding officer of the operation to regain the escaped specimen, but the fool had already died in the botched-up action. He was happy that she had obviously become more aware of her skills, but he was rather frustrated at his underlings pathetic attempts to recapture her. He wondered whether her memory had awoken yet. Surely the mind-wiping chemicals that they had kept her under would have begun to wear off by now. He smirked. She would be in for one hell of a shock when all that came rushing back.

There was a sudden knock at the door.

"Enter." He ordered quietly, stopping to stare out at the bleak environment. A nervous looking soldier came in cautiously.

"My lord, they're in position, ready to strike on your command." Styx nodded.

"Begin the operation." The young man turned to leave. Styx continued to gaze out over the city that he had helped to destroy. If this failed, a lot of heads would roll. He was almost looking forward to them screwing up.

---

Now that this was all well and truly out in the open, I felt a whole lot better. We'd decided to hold back for a while, give it all chance to sink in, and were now lying together watching as the sun began it's long journey beyond the horizon. Plus I didn't feel ready for it, I'd barely gotten used to my body yet, and I'd be damned if I was going to rush into anything stupid.

Suddenly, I felt something move behind us. It wasn't so much as hearing something, or seeing something, but actually sensing something existing. I guess that was something else that had awoken within my strange body. I turned around to look, and Joachim did too, sensing that something was amiss. He reluctantly climbed up, careful not to make too much noise, and investigated. I subconsciously switched on my special sight, and almost froze in sheer terror.

Joachim was clearly standing in the middle of the room, but he was surrounded by at least seven people, all wearing armour very similar to the Gemini's, but much thinner. They were carrying much smaller weapons too, a short barrelled sub-machine gun of some sort, with a silencer fitted over the muzzle.

"Joachim, get down!" I shouted as one made the journey into the material realm, pointing the gun directly at his chest. He dived to the floor, but yelled out in pain as the rapid burst of fire glanced him across the side of his body, spraying blood over another one that had appeared barely inches away from him. As they closed in on him, I grabbed one of the handguns that Joachim had left hanging from his jacket, which hung loosely from the bedpost, and a crazy plan entered my head as I remembered what the Gemini had ordered before. I placed the handgun up against my temple, the feel of cold metal pressed against such a vital point scaring me slightly, but I pressed on.

"Stop!" I shouted at the attackers, and I flicked off the safety. I just hoped this would work.

"What are you doing!" Joachim groaned, clutching his side in pain, slowly healing up the leaking wounds.

"Leave him alone, or I'll shoot!" I edged the gun further up against my temple in an attempt to back this up. "If you want me alive, then you better stay perfectly still!" They had all manifested themselves in our realm, now standing perfectly still and silent, all attention focused squarely on me and the black potentially lethal object pointed directly at my head. "You want me? I'll go with you quietly if you don't hurt anyone else." They all pointed their weapons at the floor simultaneously, showing that they understood.

"Are you nuts? They'll kill you!" Joachim protested.

"Whatever they want, they're willing to keep me alive for it. It's better than us both dying here right now."

"But..."

"I'll be fine, trust me." I tried to convince myself of this too, but was so far failing, the gun in my hand trembling with fear. Two of the lightly armoured soldiers stepped up and told hold of me, one on each shoulder. I felt my surroundings change as they took me into the spirit realm.

---

Joachim looked on in horror as two of the Gemini assassins took Eve away, vanishing into thin air. The other five looked down at me, before vanishing too, leaving me alone, bleeding all over the floor.

"_You did a great job there, didn't you? So much for protecting her."_

"_Shut up! I'm not going to let this drop so easily. Rin should know where they're taking her, so I'm going over there to see him again."_

"_So what's the plan if we do find out where she's being held?"_

"_I say we bust on in there."_

"_And start killing everybody? Sounds like a good idea to me."_

"_Anything to do with killing large swathes of people sounds good to you."_

"_Don't forget sex, I'm rather partial to that too. Pity we didn't get anywhere before, I was looking forward to that." _Joachim rolled his eyes at this comment, and quickly finished healing his wounds, before grabbing the long black coat off the bedpost, frowning at the fact he only had one gun now. He'd picked those up years ago when he'd been given the task of assassinating a high ranking general overseeing the building of the Alexandria Lab, recovering them from his corpse, which had "accidentally" fallen from one of the towering scaffolds on the side of the building. His contacts had always been able to provide him with ammunition for them, giving him the edge over other hunters and mercs who still used conventional weaponry like daggers and the such. He looked at the five holes that now stitched their way up his t-shirt, and frowned again, swinging the coat onto his body and heading out of the door on the long trip back to Burmecia.

Suddenly, he heard a strange cawing in the air, and looked up to see thousands of birds flying over the city, large black ravens that seemed to be fleeing from something. There had been a strange mood in the air recently, rumours of long dead monsters returning to our lands, creatures such as the fearsome Mistodons, foul-smelling Marlboros, and awe-inducing Grand Dragons. He passed this thought to the back of his mind, heading down the cobbled street. Something was brewing in Gaia, he could feel it as he treaded the streets towards the far gate towards Burmecia.

---

I gasped in shock as I was roughly thrown to the floor by two strong-armed Gemini soldiers, these ones dressed in shining silver lined armour, indicating that they were higher up in the command structure, possibly some sort of honour guards. The room I had been dropped into was darkly furnished, almost as if it resembled it's owners soul; deep black, with luxurious purple decorations.

"Here is the prisoner." One of the guards reported. "The operation was a complete success."

"Did you kill the boy?" They looked at each other as a voice came from the far end of the room, from a dark silhouette in front of a massive window, his back towards us. I would have jumped to my feet and tried to run, but my arms were tightly bound, and I doubted I would have gotten very far without any offensive capabilities.

"No..." The figure turned around, pointing a long shining rapier at the guard. He slowly made his way forwards, a flash of lightning from outside illuminating him for a split second. His silver hair was straightened, one half of the fringe falling straight over his left deep purple eye, the rest kept in a relatively orderly manner. He was wearing a long item of clothing, almost like a petticoat of some sort, gilded and lined with deep crimson against it's stark black.

"Then the mission was not a success. I requested that you killed that annoying rodent, and you have failed me."

"Please my lord! The prisoner would only accompany us if we allowed the other to live!" I couldn't believe it. A emotionless killing machine, designed with only pain and suffering in mind, was terrified? Something told me that this figure had a rather nasty reputation. He stood in front of the guard, who was trembling in terror, pointing the long thin rapier straight at his throat. After what seemed like an eternity, he lowered it, swinging it under his arm so the blade stuck out behind him.

"Very well. You may leave." Both guards bowed quickly and hurried out of the chambers, closing the door behind them and leaving me alone with this monster in the cold darkness. I lay there, panting from the shock of being thrown down, but also with fright.

"What do you want with me?" I whispered.

"My my, you really don't remember anything, do you? Perhaps I should lend a helping hand for once." He moved quickly, and I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my neck, and gasped out in pain. Suddenly, the world's worst headache kicked in, and it felt as though my mind would split at the seams as thousands upon thousands of images flitted backwards and forwards through my thoughts.

I remembered.

"Styx, you bastard!" I shouted, thrashing against the bounds that held me. He walked over to the wall next to the door and tinkered around, a low glowing light filled the room, allowing me to see the face of the man who had tormented me for the past nineteen years.

"I know, I missed you too." I felt his hand around my neck, lifting me up and putting me down on a chair in front of the modest desk in front of the colossal window looking out over the charred ruins of a once magnificent city. He wore a smile that I desperately wanted to punch halfway across the room. In fact, no. I wanted to punch it out of the window.

"Haven't you tortured me enough? I've been trapped in your playpen since the day I was born!" He chuckled.

"Since you were born, you say? How would you respond to the fact that you were not born in the first place?" This knocked me off track. He seemed to notice this, relishing the helpless confusion I was displaying. "Born is a word used when a child emerges from it's mother after a certain gestation period. You were not born."

"Oh, so I suppose the stork dropped me off did it?" I retorted sarcastically.

"Not entirely. It was a rather complicated procedure, especially without the omniscient knowledge of our master, but we pressed on, and still emerged victorious." He paused, leaning over the desk closer to my face. "Your mother died before you could have even been classed as a foetus, and yet we managed to do what nature has been doing for many millenia." I was numb with shock. Not only did that quash any hopes that my mother could have by some miracle have survived, but it laid another blow on my already broken psyche.

"What did you do to me?"

"Cloning a human being isn't very difficult. However, the soul is something entirely different. For our plans we needed a human foetus, one that had already been given a spirit. As you can tell, the first generation of Imaginary Numbers weren't very intelligent. We had to control them from a base node, and that was...how should I put it...a pain in the rear?" He stood back, strolling back and forth in front of the massive window, rain splashing in wide droplets like miniature bombs hitting a shield. "A human with a spirit would have the intelligence we needed, and we could quite easily bend it's mind to our will. Fortunately, your dear old parents happened to drop the answer to our problems right in our lap."

"So what are you planning then? Why do you need me so much?"

"Now that's a secret I'm afraid, but our time is running out as we speak. That memory booster I gave you also had a rather powerful cocktail of painkillers coupled with it. I reckon in less than three minutes you'll be completely unconscious. When you awake, you won't remember any of this ever happening, and you'll be our little play-toy."

"What?" I couldn't let this happen, but even now I was starting to feel weak, my body slowly shutting down. He looked at his watch.

"Hmm, it should be several hours before the labs will be ready for you. I think that's enough time for a little fun now, isn't it?" I slumped off the chair, limply landing on the carpeted floor. I suddenly remembered how Styx got his kicks, and I prayed for oblivion to take me before he did.

---

Joachim jumped off his mount and made his way down the slippery cobbled streets of Burmecia, his coat gradually becoming more and more drenched, rain snaking it's way down his face. However, he couldn't have cared less. All he was concentrating on was some way of saving Eve from the Gemini. He could only hope that Rin hadn't left for work yet.

Arriving at the little house, he knocked on the door in a hurried manner. It slowly opened, revealing the nervous scientist, his hair still as wild as it had been a few nights ago.

"Joachim? What brings you here?"

"I need your help. They've got Eve."

"The Gemini? Good heavens. I'd been hearing rumours of something important being discovered at the lab, perhaps that would be her."

"_That's a good enough guess, let me at them."_ Firenze responded.

"Can I come with you to the lab?"

"I doubt she'll be there, they'll have moved her to the Gemini Command Centre, along with my latest creation."

"What's that then?"

"After a recent expedition on one of the lost continents in the far north, we discovered a long forgotten laboratory, one that contained many items of great interest. Acheron immediately got us working on--"

"Did you just say Acheron?"

"Yes, he's the director of the Alexandria lab. Why do you ask?"

"Because he's the worthless maggot that killed my father." Rin looked down uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. I thought you hated your father?"

"That was before I found out the truth. He was a brave man, not the cowardly scum I thought he was."

"I see. Well, I've been scheduled to be moved to the GCC, but I don't know how I can take you with me."

"Where is it?"

"Right in the centre of the ruins of Zion. Rather ironic when you think about it." He clicked his fingers, and ducked back inside, emerging with a strange metallic device. "Take this."

"And this is?"

"It's an artificial phaser. I managed to reverse engineer some of the technology we found on the old Spiritseer vehicles, and miniaturise it for personal use. It's how the Gemini forces get between our realm and the realm of the dead." He pointed to a small button in the centre of the perfectly circular device. "You just strap it on to your forearm and press the button. Zion is in the middle of the ocean that lies between each continent of Gaia. When you phase through to the other realm, the whole landscape will change, and you'll quickly find that that area of the ocean is actually dry land. It could take a while though."

"Don't worry about that, I've got a back up." He pointed at the yellow chocobo sat down the road, currently preening itself, rain bouncing off it's soft yellow water-proof feathers. Rin nodded.

"Smart. I'll see you there then. Try not to kick up too much of a fuss."

"_I don't think I'll be able to keep that in mind."_ Joachim imagined Firenze grinning evilly at the prospect of killing everyone in the building and shook his head, smiling at the thought, before jumping up onto his mount, who squawked happily and bounded off down towards the coastline.

---

Neil looked out of the window, frowning at the sight of thousands upon thousands of black ravens flying over the grand city of Alexandria. His heightened sense of the supernatural was perking up, something big was going on. Suddenly, the sky began to grow dark, almost as if night was approaching.

"That's strange." He muttered. "It's not even mid-afternoon yet." Could it be a storm? He shook his head, he could quite clearly see the stars, so it couldn't be anything to do with the weather. He turned to Mikoto, who was also staring out of the window with worry. "I'm going to the castle, something's going on." She nodded, and he gave her a quick hug and kiss before heading out the door, picking up his sword on the way out, it's ruby flame core glinting in the moon light as it swung loosely by his side.

Outside, people had left their homes to stare upwards at the sky in puzzlement, some in fear. What was this unnatural phenomenon? What did it mean? Neil just strode past them, his white clothed form seemed to glow in the darkness as he made his way towards Alexandria Castle. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good, that much was certain...

* * *

Don't forget to review people, reviews are nice to have! Thanks to Mistress Manga and Salyriad for the kind (if not slightly unhinged) reviews. No need to blush now. 

Chris


	6. Chapter Five: Equilibrium

Disclaimer: Read the other chapters, and if you have any queries, or would like to use any of the concepts/ideas/characters/places/etc here, then don't hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile. Anyone caught using any of the above without my permission will be executed for such a heinous crime.

A/N: As Mistress Manga has pointed out, there are a hell of a lot of Greek references in this fic. Well done to her for noticed that the "Children Of Erebus" (Styx and the others) were named after the five rivers of Hell in Greek mythology ("Acheron" is the river of woe, "Cocytus" is the river of wailing, "Lethe" is the river of forgetfulness, "Phlegethon" is the river of fire, and "Styx" is the river of unbreakable oaths). Also, what you may or may not have noticed, Erebus is the Greek mythological term for the darkness of the underworld. Just some fancy facts for you all there.

Anywho, anyone who reads my blog will know that I've properly begun work on some illustrations for the three installments of Reality Check, which ought to turn out nice. Until they're finished though, you'll just have to use your imaginations!

* * *

_**Chapter 5: Equilibrium**_

Joachim looked up at the imposing tower with a sense of dread. He'd arrived at the ruins of Zion with barely any trouble at all, except the sudden darkness that had descended on Gaia. His chocobo had been quite disturbed by this turn of events, almost throwing him to the ground in terror. Now he stood before his enemy's home, it would suffice to say he was really pissed off.

The building itself was built right in the very centre of Zion, right above the Light Chamber. The power of the Light Crystal shone straight through the core of the tower, powering all of the systems within the control centre with it's incalculable energies. The tower was built out of a heavy obsidian crystal, with a dull gleam from the natural light around it. Even from here, Joachim could spot a giant window up on one of the highest floors in the building, a dim light coming from within.

"_So, how so we get in?" _He asked Firenze, who had been puzzling over this for quite some time.

"_I have an idea, but it would involve us switching places."_ Joachim shuddered. The last time that had happened, the results had been...painful...to say the least.

"_Is there any other way?"_

"_Unless you want to climb every one of the two hundred and twelve floors, and get shot to pieces before you even get to Floor Six? Plus, with the amount of time it would take, it's highly likely that whatever they wanted to do to Eve would have happened, and that wouldn't do, would it?" _Grudgingly, Joachim agreed. _"Hang tight, this is going to be a bumpy ride."_

---

I sat by the desk, crouched up in a foetal position, trembling with horror. Unfortunately for me, I had been conscious enough to be aware of what was happening to me, but too weak to fight back. I violently threw up when I thought of what had just happened. I felt horrifically dirty, almost as if I had been contaminated by a disgusting disease. I wanted to claw out my insides, to rid myself of the horrible feeling within. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw nightmarish scenes from my ordeal, things that I wished really were just a nightmare, and had never happened.

"That wasn't so bad was it?" I heard his voice coming from the other side of the desk, and I retched once again, an acrid taste building up at the back of my throat. I was vaguely aware of the sound of gunshots outside, but I was far too preoccupied with the terrible feelings inside to care too much about that. The one thing that really disgusted me was how my traitorous body had succumbed to the emotions bombarding it, even enjoying the experience. I'd rather have cut out each of my internal organs with a rusty spoon before going through that again.

Suddenly, the window that stood dominating the large room shattered into uncountable fragments, showering the entire chamber with glittering shards of broken glass. Through the shining shrapnel flew a giant black beast, it's long bat-like wings flapping in the wind from this enormous height. The creature was covered in ancient shredsof bandages, stained with thick black blood, exposing deathly pale muscled flesh in certain places. The creature seemed almost human in composure, scruffy silver hair covered up a pale and gaunt face, black pitiless eyes staring at the two figures in the room in sheer blood lust.

Styx stepped back from this horrific demon, not even bothering to raise his rapier, as it could have easily snapped him like a twig. Instead, he raised his hands, firing off a eerie blue blast of light at the newcomer, who just smashed this flare of light aside as though it was nothing, the spell exploding violently against the far wall. I hid my head under my arms, curling up as tight as I could in a vain attempt to hide from this beast.

"Hmm, a part-wraith. How interesting, could it be that I know you?" The demon emitted a terrifying roar, and I noticed that it had begun to change, it's wings slowly pulling back into it's body, it's clothing reforming into a much more familiar form. By the end of it, where a winged dark beast from the very pits of Hell had stood, now stood Joachim, an intense hatred burning deep within his eyes. Styx raised an eyebrow.

"You should recognise me after what you did to my mother." He looked puzzled.

"Your mother? No, it can't be...the girl with the genome?"

"Oh yes, that was her. That genome was my father."

"Well, this is a truly impressive turn of events, the link is amazing. It's a strange twist of fate that the two of you should be so close, isn't it?" He looked up at the ceiling in nostalgia. "Hmmm, yes. She was a fine one. Her skin had the--"

"Don't you even think about it." Joachim levelled the remaining handgun straight at Styx's head. "You violated her, while my father lay helpless. Death is too good for you."

"Please, violated is such a harsh word. It was a pity she was unconscious, I bet she would have enjoyed it, much like this one did." He indicated to my crouched form, with a dark grin on his face. Joachim looked even more pissed off now than he did before. Not only had this...creature violated his mother, but he had also desecrated another woman he cared dearly for.

"You absolute bastard!" He pulled the trigger, and much to his shock, the bullet stopped in mid-air right in front of Styx's face. He grinned again and plucked it out of the air, tossing it over his shoulder.

"It's a pity you won't be able to get your revenge, no doubt some of my scientists would be quite happy search your corpse for interesting information later." With one swift movement, he waved his hand in the air, casting a teleport spell that shot him straight out of the room in a flash of blue light. Joachim cursed angrily, before turning to me and crouching down, taking me in his arms. I fell into them, sobbing openly, the horror and the grief of my ordeal bursting out without any way of stopping it.

"I-it was horrible..." I stammered through involuntary sobs, and he patted me on the back gently, holding me close.

"I'm sorry, I should have been here sooner." We remained like that for a long while, until I felt my tears being replaced by something else, a burning hatred, an intense lust of revenge. I wanted to submit that bastard to the same horrific events he had just exposed me to. I suddenly realised that I didn't deserve this love and attention that this kind man was showing me.

"I'm a freak, I'm not even human." I whispered. Joachim pulled me back so we could look face to face, a deep gaze of concern on his face.

"What do you mean?" He gently wiped away some of the tears that were staining my face.

"He told me how I was created, how they ripped me out of my dead mother before I was even a week old, how they grew me in a tube."

"What difference does that make? You are what you make of yourself, nothing can change that."

"There was a reason...a reason why he created me...but he wouldn't tell me why..."

"Look, if you go on thinking like this, you'll go insane. I know it's hard, but if you start to be affected by this, that means they've won. Fight it, don't give in so easily." I looked straight into his eyes, and felt calmed by that deep twinking ocean of blue. "Come on, let's get out of here." He took me by the hand and gently lead me to my feet.

"Wait." He paused.

"What's wrong?"

"I want to find out more. I want to find out why they did this to me." He looked at the door a little uncomfortably. It wouldn't be long before security was all over them. He looked towards the desk, where there was some sort of computer terminal. He went over and checked it out.

"Hmph, the idiot left himself logged in." He muttered, tapping away on the keyboard. I went over to join him, hanging over his shoulder so I could see the screen. I tried not to look at the state of the desk, it reminded me too much of what had happened on it barely thirty minutes ago.

It wasn't long before we found what we were looking for: an archive of reports from various projects over the past twenty years. I read through some of the entries from twenty years ago, curious to find out what had happened.

* * *

_Date Of Entry: 14th September 2005_

_Project: Redemption_

_Subject: Recovery._

_The pregnant female has been recovered from the Light Chamber successfully, pronounced dead on arrival. Wounds show injury from a weapon with the ability to destroy the spiritual essence of the affected individual, one heavy stab wound that penetrated from the front of the upper chest, exit wound found on upper back, showing that the wound was sustained while the victim was prone. There was also a slash wound across the chest that penetrated 2cm into the flesh of the upper body. Initial scans show an eight day old foetus within the uterus, proceeding with the extraction process._

_Surgeon General Alex Hicks

* * *

_

_Date Of Entry: 16th September 2005_

_Project: Redemption_

_Subject: Success!_

_We have successfully recovered the unborn child from the mother's body, much to the relief of our superiors. The mother's body is to be stored in cryogenic stasis until further analysis, the child has been placed in an growth tank and has been given a dosage of growth enhancers. Hopefully, we can recreate the environment of the womb, so that the child can develop without any ill effects._

_Surgeon General Alex Hicks

* * *

_

_Date Of Entry: 27th June 2006_

_Project: Redemption_

_Subject: Artificial Birth_

_The child has developed without any detectable effects, cerebral activity and cardio-pulmonary activity are nominal. One of the nurses has affectionately given the child the name "Eve", to which I will now refer to the child as. Eve has responded to all neural stimuli, and is showing good progress._

_Surgeon General Alex Hicks

* * *

_

_Date Of Entry: 3rd October 2023_

_Project: Redemption_

_Subject: Combat Skill Implantation_

_We have now entered a crucial stage in this operation: the implantation of the necessary offensive and defensive capabilities into the cerebral cortex for Eve to complete her mission. I will be personally overseeing the operation, and I can only hope that it does not leave her with intense emotional scarring. Combat skills include unarmed combat, close range hand-held weaponry, moderate firearms usage, due to the time zone that that she will be sent to, and advanced Black Magic capabilities. After running extensive checks on her DNA structure, we discovered that she had naturally inherited an immense amount of power in the Black arts from one of her parents. Since we could not detect any trace of magical abilities in the mother, we can only assume that this is a genetic gift from her father. I will now commence the complex neural operation._

_Surgeon General Alex Hicks

* * *

_

I stood back from the terminal, numb with shock. I suddenly realised why I had been able to use that rifle back in Burmecia. It had been burnt into my brain, along with all sorts of other things. What had they been talking about when they had said " _due to the time zone that that she will be sent to"_? Why would I need all of these skills?

"Could it be possible that your mother is still stored somewhere in this building?" Joachim asked. I scanned though the archives, but I couldn't find any sign of her removal, so it could be that she was still here, frozen in perfect condition.

"I don't know, but I _would_ like to find out." I replied. Joachim sighed. This was going to be a long night.

---

Queen Garnet looked incredibly worried as she gazed out of the window, looking over her kingdom that had been plunged into darkness. The calm orange glow of lights being lit up all around the city soothed her a little, at least her people weren't too scared. She, on the other hand, was terrified. For the past few days she had felt a horrifying dark presence on Gaia, slowly contaminating the very life of the planet.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Enter." She turned to see one of her most trusted knights standing by the door.

"I figured I'd better be here your majesty. Any idea what's going on?"

"I'm unsure, but I can feel a dark presence in our lands." Neil looked down at the floor.

"I think I may know why."

"Go on."

"A long time ago, back when we were in Zion, I remember reading something about how the elements of the universe were governed by eight crystals. Seven of these were destroyed in the Great War, leaving only the Light Crystal behind."

"What does this have to do with this darkness?"

"Well, what if the Shadow Crystal wasn't destroyed? An imbalance between the Light and Shadow crystals could be causing this." Garnet nodded, it would certainly coincide with her feelings.

"So what would happen next? I assume this wouldn't bode well?"

"No, if there was an imbalance, then it would start to upset the way the universe works. In essence, this could tear the whole of existence apart." Garnet lapsed into a shocked silence. Finally, after careful consideration, she looked back at the paladin.

"How can we stop it."

"That's the thing. If there really is an imbalance between two of the crystals, we can't stop it. There's no way for us to change it."

"So we are to sit here and wait for the Apocalypse?" Neil fell into an uncomfortable silence, scratching the back of his head.

"Nothing else we can do really. We've just got to pray that it'll sort itself out."

---

The mood in the Chronos control room was one of jubilation. Rin smiled happily as he watched some of the others hug each other with joy and give each other hearty pats on the back and such. They'd finally done it, the Chronos was a complete success, each and every one of the tests had come back positive. They'd finally done what was thought to be completely impossible.

They'd created a time machine.

Rin shook the hand of a fellow scientist, one by the name of Helen, as she excitedly jumped around hugging everyone in sight, her long light blonde hair almost taking Nathan's eye out, as he stood watching his Ever since they had found that abandoned laboratory in the Esto Gaza region, things had moved along at such an incredible pace. Hell, even Acheron looked happy, watching the staff celebrating the success, wearing a plain white labcoat for once. Normally he waltzed into the delicate lab wearing some sort of military commander's coat, usually a deep purple in colour. Today however, he had decided to actually abide by basic health and safety, which impressed Rin quite a lot.

Eventually, things quietened down in the control room as the others went off to celebrate elsewhere. Rin walked slowly up to the window that lined the front of the control room, displaying the complex piece of machinery on the other side. In essence, it was a hybrid pyrex and glass sphere suspended over a pit which held three long claw-like metal arms. These were designed to give the particles in the sphere enough energy to break free from the simple three dimensions we normally abided by, allowing them to traverse limitedly along the so-called "Fourth Dimension", which was basically time. Reading some of the works that had been written by the occupants of the abandoned lab was a fascinating experience, touching on how time actually worked, analysing the natural phenomenon of foresight, all sorts of exciting information.

Suddenly, the artificial light of the laboratory flickered alarmingly, before returning to normal. Rin looked around in a confused manner, was that a power cut? He stepped over to one of the complicated-looking terminals and brought up a display of the power in the building, checking for any anomalies. He did a double take, having to check several times to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, but the truth stared him right in the face.

The Light Crystal was losing power.

He brought up a graph showing how much energy it had been releasing over the past few hours, and it had been dropping quite rapidly. Of course, the intimidating tower had a plethora of back-up generators and systems in place to ensure that it never went without electricity, yet they had never been used before. When we had developed the systems that harnessed the unimaginable power of the Light Crystal, they'd been put in as an afterthought. However, now they were working at maximum capacity just to supply the building with enough energy to keep core systems working.

He couldn't understand it. What had caused the Light Crystal to suddenly lose power like that? He started to check for any source of interference, and dropped the pen he had been twiddling between his fingers in sheer shock. The Light Crystal itself had begun to split, one half was the familiar pure white orb of light, while the other half was the darkest shade of black he had ever seen, covered with organic-looking spikes and tendrils starting to grow out of the light-absorbing darkness.

There was only one explanation for this. In each of the eight elemental crystals, there were organic blueprints, like DNA, for every single one of the other crystals. In essence, this allowed them to regenerate if they were ever destroyed. It looked as though the Light Crystal was regenerating the Shadow Crystal, but something was amiss. The energy it was expelling had started to fluctuate, while the the Shadow's energy was slowly growing stronger. This was causing a massive imbalance, and with horror Rin realised that this could quite easily tear apart the entire universe if left to continue.

Suddenly, his attention was distracted by a quick movement in the corner of the room. He stood up warily, his hands beginning to shake in their traditional nervous way. The lights flickered once again, this time for longer, before returning to normal. Whatever it was in the far corner, it wasn't human. He heard a slight sniffing noise, and screamed as something big, black and fast dove out at him...

---

Mikoto looked out of the window again, biting her lip. It was awfully silent in the world, not to a single noise penetrated the enshrouding darkness that had fallen upon Gaia. She suddenly felt a tug on her t-shirt, and looked down to see Sal, his eyes wide with fear.

"Mummy, there's something in the kitchen." He whispered, and then she heard it. A small sniffing noise coming from the other room. She put her arm around her terrified child, watching the doorway as a black creature came into sight, it's dark form seemed to absorb all the light around it. She moved slightly, putting herself between Sal and the new horrifying beast. "What is it?" He asked.

"Shush. I don't know, but it doesn't look hostile at the moment." She explained quietly, trying not to attract the attention of the monster, which was now looking in their direction with piercing glowing red eyes. It was crouched down to the floor like some sort of feral dog, sniffing incessantly, as it looked straight into Mikoto's eyes, terrifying her.

It chose that moment to attack...

---

"What the hell was that?" Neil whispered, looking out of the window. He heard Garnet gasp as they noticed a guard lying completely still on the ground in front of the doors, blood slowly dripping down the steps in some sort of tiny morbid waterfall of crimson. Neil sensed movement behind them, and turned to hear a sniffing sound, much like a dog would sniff when trying to find something. He slowly turned around, watching as the dog-like creature looked directly at them, sniffing the air, it's eyes blazing red, almost as if they were on fire. Neil slowly raised his sword, trying not to cause any sudden movements.

Suddenly, the monster leapt at them...


	7. Chapter Six: Resurrection

Disclaimer: Read the other chapters, and if you have any queries, don't hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile. Anyone caught stealing will be dealt with severely.

A/N: As some of you may have found out recently, there's been a spate of authors being suspended for responding to reviews in their chapters. I, for one, find this completely ridiculous. So, to de-risk the situation, if you review while you are signed in, or leave an e-mail address, I'll e-mail you to personally thank you for the review.

* * *

_**Chapter 6: Resurrection

* * *

**_

"So what you're telling me is that the two crystals are fighting against each other?" Joachim asked after Rin's long winded explanation. Rin nodded. If Joachim and myself hadn't have showed up when they did, he would have been a dead man by now, the demon now a pile of dust next to a flashing computer terminal, firing sparks everywhere. Joachim calmly loaded a fresh clip into his single remaining handgun, before flipping it elegantly back into it's holster.

"Yes, and it looks like the Shadow Crystal is winning. That demon we just saw was a creation of the dark energies within that crystal, the very spawn of evil."

"Gee, and I thought Styx was bad." I muttered.

"Well, he is only human after all, even if his soul is completely corrupted beyond all rescue."

"There was something else. The files said that my mother would be stored cryogenically somewhere around here. You wouldn't by any chance know where she'd be kept?" I asked, as the lights flickered threateningly once again. The back-up generators in this place wouldn't last too long, they simply weren't designed to produce the amount of energy needed to run the systems in the building. Rin stroked his chin, thinking carefully.

"Hmm, the cryogenics section isn't far from here, it should be just--" He was cut off by the sound of gunfire and growls coming from the far corridor, closely followed by blood-curdling screams of pain and terror. "--down there..." He finished, his whole body now trembling with fear. Joachim stood with his single handgun pointed squarely at the door, listening carefully for any sounds coming from outside. There was nothing but a cold lifeless silence, occasionally punctuated with rasping sniffles.

"How far?"

"About a hundred metres, just a few corridors away."

"Right. If you two start running, I'll handle those things." I was a little reluctant.

"You'll follow us...right?" I asked fearfully. He nodded.

"I've fought worse than these before. I'll be fine. Just concentrate on running." I nodded, and we all headed towards the door, hanging around the outside, waiting for the opportune moment. "Go!" The door slid open, revealing two more of the feral dog-like creatures, their completely dark forms crouched and ready to attack.

As we dashed out into the corridor, it looked as if these monsters had decided to give the place a new paintjob, deep red blood splashed along the walls, Gemini soldiers lay dismembered on the floor, leaking more blood all over the hard metal surface.

I grabbed Rin by the hand, dragging him along the blood-soaked corridor, trying to ignore the gunshots and snarls coming from behind me. I swooped my hand down, picking up one of the rifles that the soldiers had dropped, flicking it into position and firing at two more of the creatures that were bounding towards us, my sub-conscious taking over and showing me what to do. The rifle shook violently as the gunfire ripped the skull of one of the monsters to pieces. However, instead of blood and brain matter being thrown all over the place, there was a just a massive poof of black smoke as it's body erupted into dust. I quickly dealt with the other one, it too suffering the same fate as it's comrade.

We made our way along the corridor, charging through any other monsters, which were now bounding out of walls at us, any dark place providing a kind of spawning point for these creatures of shadow. I felt a sharp pain as one flew inches away from my head, catching it's long lethally sharp claws on my left shoulder, tearing into flesh. I cried out, but carried on running, Rin whimpering and yelling in fright as more and more of the demons came at us.

Finally, we made it to our destination, with the words "Cryogenic Storage" stenciled on the stark metal of the door. We dived in as it slid open smoothly, and Rin jumped up and locked the door. I gasped in shock.

"What are you doing? Joachim's still out there!"

"Wait for it." He muttered, listening carefully. After a few seconds, he slapped the panel again, and the door slid open, revealing a bloodied and wounded Joachim, who leapt inside, Rin locking the door behind him.

"Oh my god, you're hurt!" I grabbed him and laid him down, wiping excess blood away. He shook his head.

"Nah, it's just a few scratches, that's all." I looked at some of the wounds, noticing that some of them exposed bone, others were pumping out blood so fast it was almost like a tap. He placed his hands over some of the heavier wounds and began to heal them, the sears in his flesh slowly closing up. "I'll be fine." He assured me. I nodded, turning to look at our new surroundings.

It was a brightly lit room, which was a relief. I'd noticed that those monsters only appeared from shadows, so we would be safe in here. It was quite a long room, stretching into the far distance, the walls lined with some kind of metallic pods all along it's length, each of the pods emitting a freezing cold steam that stiffened the hairs on my body as it touched them. I'd noticed goosebumps start to emerge from my skin as I took a good look around. Each of the pods had a thick glass viewing windows on the front, about the same size as an adult human, the surface covered in a thin frost that covered the contents. There was a small terminal next to each pod, displaying the vital data of it's occupants. Most of the people in the cryo pods were dead, no vital signs whatsoever showing up on the small frosty screens.

I ambled along when suddenly I heard someone shout in terror.

"Stay back! Get away from me!" I looked to see a terrified-looking man, in his late fifties, his hair now a light grey with his age. His face was beginning to show his age too, the wrinkles lining his brow and crow's feet next to his mouth. He was holding a trembling handgun, pointing it directly at me, but as soon as I turned to face him, he lowered it, his face showing an awe-stricken shock. "Eve?"

"Yes? How did you know that?" He put the gun down on the frozen floor and got up. He was also wearing white clothing, although it wasn't a lab coat, it was something similar.

"I'm sorry for all I did to you. I didn't really have much of a choice." It dawned on me who this was.

"You're Alex Hicks?" He nodded.

"I was in charge of all of the operations of Project Redemption. In essence, I brought you up."

"So why did they want me? What would have stopped them from picking some other pregnant mother?"

"I don't know, the three of them never told anyone about the exact details of their plans. All they told me is that they needed a human with specialist combat abilities, they never told me why." There was another lead that had gone down the drain.

"What happened to my mother? I read that she was still in here." He pointed past me, over to one of the pods that lined the walls, like soldiers standing to attention. I carefully crept over, and rubbed my hand along the glass, shivering at the intense cold within. As the frost vanished, I saw a woman's face, her eyes closed like she was in some sort of deep sleep, her expression completely peaceful. Her beautiful locks of raven black hair spread out like ink in water, giving her the appearance of a wondrous siren.

"There's nothing much we can do with her. The body was quite damaged, but she would have lived if her spirit hadn't been destroyed." I kept my hand on the glass, even though it felt like it was slowly freezing to it. This had been the closest I had ever been to my mother, the woman who had carried me for such a short amount of time, whose love had helped me to exist in the first place. I could feel a single tear run down my cheek, it's warmth was quite soothing as it dripped from my face and landed on the floor softly, freezing as soon as it touched the chilling ground.

I knew there was thing I could do, the only thing I could do that would bring me closer to my mother. During the past few days I tried it more and more with Joachim, and I was quite shocked at the results. I closed my eyes and concentrated, allowing my spiritual form to leave it's mortal confinement and float freely above my body, which had now fallen to the ground in a deep slumber. Slowly, I moved my soul through the frozen glass, and entered my mother's body.

---

Neil was panting. Those weird shadow creatures were incredibly fast, and their claws tore through flesh like a hot knife through butter. However, as he had quickly found out, they didn't have much form. His sword cut straight through them, and it didn't take much to destroy them, turning them into a silvery-grey dust immediately.

"What was that?" Garnet asked, her heart beating faster than a terrified rabbit's. Her gown was torn a bit along the waist, a little blood staining the pure-white silk. Neil was however much worse, one of them had managed to clamp it's teeth around his left wrist, blood openly dripping from the wound, darkening the deep red carpet beneath them.

"I don't know, I've never seen anything like it before." He looked down at the horrific wound, watching as it slowly closed itself up. Absent-mindedly, he wiped a bit of the crimson fluid away from the perfectly healed wrist.

"It won't have just attacked here either, the city is in danger." Neil's heart almost jumped out of his chest, he'd completely forgotten that Mikoto and Sal were at home alone, almost completely defenseless. It was at that moment that a blonde haired man dived into the door, ripping it off it's hinges, and flying wildly into the room, waving two long slender silver daggers about madly.

"Where the hell did those things come from?" Zidane shouted crazily, panting as he looked back at the doorway. His light-blue waistcoat was a little shredded in places, and there was a thin line of blood creeping it's way down his forehead. Neil turned to Garnet, who looked incredibly relieved that Zidane was still alive.

"Your majesty, I've left my family alone at the house. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them."

"Of course, go down there and keep them safe. Our troops should be able to handle the rest of these creatures." Neil healed some Zidane's wounds before running full-pelt down the stairs and out of the grand front doors, blasting a monster that was diving at him out of the way with a blast of pure light from his outstretched palm. He made his way through the city, wiping out anything that came at him, dodging civilians who were panicking, running in any direction that didn't lead into these horrific monsters.

Finally, he made it back to the house, the windows were completely blacked out. He ran in through the front door, looking into the living room. The house was eerily silent, totally lifeless. Chairs had been knocked over, there were deep slash marks on the sofa, revealing it's fluffy innards. There was a large pool of blood by the window, reflecting the pale moonlight from outside, with a wet crimson trail leading towards the dining room.

"No..." He whispered in pure shock.

---

_There was an intense darkness. Nothing was happening._

_Suddenly, there was a rapid flash of images, clips from the life of the body I now resided in, the residual memory that remained in the body even after the spirit had left it._

_I found myself looking an odd screen. The room I was in was nicely decorated in light green, a bed with flowery patterns was against the far wall. I looked down in front of the old screen to see a big flat grey device sat quietly humming to itself._

_The scene changed, now I was in the middle of a field, a massive gleaming city was a few hundred metres away, the crisp grass swayed in the light breeze from the south. I felt alone and frightened. What was going on, what was that place over there? What was a massive castle doing in the middle of that town, the one with giant sword in the middle of it?_

_Another scene change, and now I felt older, wiser, stronger. I found myself hiding quietly at the edge of a wonderfully decorated crumbling wall, covered in murals of wondrous beasts called Eidolons. I watched carefully as a young man about my age slowly crept out into the open, towards a dark haired woman who was holding a sleeping child, a small horn growing on it's forehead, almost hidden by a well-kept bob of purple hair. I moved forwards slowly, so I was incredibly close to the black-clothed boy, taking the elegantly carved bow and the quivers off his back without him even noticing. What an idiot, I thought. His hand slowly crept onto his back, but he seemed puzzled to see that nothing was there. I drew out my katana, the metal blade flashing in the sunlight, and pointed it directly at his back._

"_Looking for something?" I asked, and I could feel a grin crawling across my face._

_Another change of scenery, and I was now in a darkened room, nothing but a pale light creeping in through the netted window. Silently, I moved towards the bed in the middle of the room, which held a single sleeping occupant, the same blonde-haired boy in the previous scene, now much older. My heart was fluttering as I watched him slowly breathe in and out, stirring slightly in a dream-like state._

_Another memory, and this one was far louder. I stood looking at a colossal mechanical monstrosity stamping it's way towards me in a massive grand city, a proud clock tower stood just beside me. As streaks of light and smoke flew straight into the six-legged machine, bouncing harmlessly off it's armour, I felt someone grab my hand. I turned to see the blonde-haired boy from before dragging me towards a bridge, his crystal blue eyes filled with terror. I ran with him, only for another smaller machine to notice our desperate escape attempt, this one turning a small lethal looking cannon straight at us. I looked deep into his eyes, and we both dived over the edge of the bridge into the rushing blood-stained waters below._

_Finally, it came to last memory in this woman's mind. I found myself in a metallic chamber, lit from a single glowing orb in the very centre of the room. I felt a horrific pain in my chest as a long thin blade flew straight past, carving a deep slash into my body. I fell backwards in agony, landing heavily on the hard cold floor, before the blonde-haired man thrusted the blade straight down into my body. I screamed, feeling every inch of the icy cold steel penetrate me, straight through my breastbone and out of my back. I could feel my body grow more and more cold, my vision slowly turning dark, my form jerking as the last few pulses of life flowed through me, before everything descended into oblivion..._

_---_

I emerged from my mother's body, horrified. I'd seen her entire life before my very eyes, watched her fall in love, witnessed her violent death at the hands of the man she'd loved. I drifted back to my own body, which still laid on the frozen ground.

As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw the others crowded around me, looking concerned.

"Are you alright?" Joachim asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, just a little enlightened." I replied, carefully climbing to my feet. We were about to move on, before I heard a tiny beep coming from the machine that held my mother's body. It was followed by another beep, and then another, and another. Alex looked at the terminal connected to the cryo pod and almost fainted with shock. He went over to check whether it wasn't just acting up, but the results were clear.

"What's up?" Rin asked. Alex shook his head in disbelief.

"Her heart...it's begun beating. Cerebral activity is rising, blood flow is increasing."

"What? Isn't that impossible?"

"Of course it is. She's been dead for twenty years! Something isn't right." He checked the machine again. "Spiritual essence levels are rising to life-support capabilities. We'd better thaw her out before she starts breathing." He tapped a few buttons on the frosty terminal. My heart was fluttering, my stomach was in knots. She was alive? Alex looked at Joachim and Rin.

"I'm afraid us guys are going to have to wait over there."

"What do you mean?" Joachim responded.

"We have to freeze bodies completely naked, so unless you fancy being a pervert and watching, then we will go and sit near the door." He blushed a little, before nodding and heading over there with Rin. Alex came over and explained to me what to do, and I thanked him before he went with the others. I watched the machine slowly open, and I averted my eyes to prevent me from embarrassing myself. Grabbing a long white towel from inside the machine's side, I wrapped it around her, covering up any particularly private areas. I watched as the lid of the machine folded forwards, forming a sort of table for her to lie on. The liquid she had been suspended in had now melted, and was dripping out over the edges of the lid, pouring into a drain underneath it on the floor. I watched with baited breath as she stirred slightly.

Suddenly, she sat up and screamed, clutching the centre of her chest in agony before falling back on the lid, panting rapidly, looking in every direction at once. Finally she looked straight at me, her frightened emerald eyes meeting my calm crystal blue gaze.

"W...where am I? What happened?" She whispered, before coughing up more of the thick slimy white liquid she had been suspended in.

"I think the more appropriate question would be 'when are you'. It's 2025, you've been dead for twenty years." I explained. She blinked a few times in disbelief, shaking from the cold. She slowly sat up, looking down at the thin line that snaked its way down her across her stomach, before closing her eyes and shuddering with silent tears. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to do what any decent child should do, and I hugged her.

"Are you two alright?" I heard Joachim whisper, keeping his eyes firmly closed.

"Yeah, you can look now." Melissa looked at the young silver haired man, almost in shock, before shaking her head.

"What's the matter?"

"Sorry, it's just...you look like someone I once knew." She murmured. Joachim and I looked at each other. "Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Alex stepped up from the back.

"You died in Light Chamber in the very centre of Zion. Styx and the others brought you back to the labs where we..." He paused, wondering how she would react. She looked down at the thin line on her stomach again.

"...I see. So what did you do with it then?"

"Why don't you look for yourself? The result is sat right in front of you." She stared at me, her face showing so many different emotions at once.

"...you're my daughter?" I nodded, and she flung her arms around me, crying with sheer joy. I felt as though I'd finally found something, someone I could call family.

We must have sat like that for several minutes, cradling each other. I must have been weird for her, as she hadn't aged at all while in suspended animation, which meant that biologically, I was almost older than my own mother.

"I'm sorry I've missed so much." She apologised, and I shook my head.

"Trust me, you didn't miss anything too important." There was suddenly a loud clank on against the door at the far end of the room, causing Rin to yelp in shock.

"Don't worry, it'll hold out." Alex explained to the terrified Rin.

"Yes, but for how long?" He kept his eye firmly on the door.

"What's going on?" Melissa asked. I shook my head.

"It's a long story." I replied. She nodded.

"Well if I was a little more decently dressed, I'd help out." She indicated to the towel that was barely covering her as it was.

"The clothes we found you in are in the storage compartment of the pod. They're a bit torn, but it's better than nothing." Alex explained. She got up, her legs trembling slightly as her feet hit the freezing cold floor. The rest of us moved towards the door, which was now heavily dented from the outside, a growling sniffling monster banging into it over and over again.

"So what's the plan now?" I heard Joachim ask.

"How about we get out of here?" Rin answered.

"What's the point? Those things will be all across the planet by now. No matter where we run, they'll hunt down every living thing until the end."

"Okay then, how about we do something about that then?" Alex suggested. Rin shook his head.

"Like what? The only weapon that could do anything to a crystal was lost twenty years ago. We can't do anything to stop the imbalance. Basically, the universe is screwed." I thought for a minute, trying to think of something to suggest.

"Well we can't just sit here and wait for death to take us, we've got to do something!"

"Do what!" Suddenly, we heard a terrible voice crackle high in the roof.

"_I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourselves, but there's no use. We're all done for now. You'd be better off killing yourselves right now." _I recognised that voice, it was Styx, being an annoying bastard as per usual. It seemed to be coming from some sort of intercom system.

It was at that moment I heard a few gunshots outside, and a high-pitched whine of the monster that had been trying to break it's way in.

"Is there anyone alive in there?" I heard a dim voice through the metal of the door.

"_This is our hiding spot, bugger off."_ Firenze muttered. Joachim opened the door to reveal a large jovial man with ruffled black hair, wearing the same kind of purple armour of the Gemini, albeit without a helmet. Behind him was a red-headed girl, watching the corridor carefully, holding a modified version of the standard Gemini rifle, stripped down so it was much lighter. Watching the t-junction in the corridor was another man, his brown curly hair hung loosely down the side of his head, bobbing his head around the corner every few seconds, holding a short barrelled shotgun, ready to fire at any opportunity.

"Glad to see someone's still alive in this place." He muttered, outstretching his hand to Joachim. "The name's Adam, the lass over there is Jo, and the guy with the rocking hair-do is Greg." They all nodded in acknowledgment. We made our introductions, and he nodded.

"Who are you guys then?"

"We are..._were_ the Advanced Gemini Tactical Squad, otherwise known as the Executioners. That was before we got our asses screwed over by the system. They sent us down here to secure the labs, and then left us for dead."

"Wow, sucks to be you." I replied, and he smiled.

"Indeed. We figured that someone would still be in one piece down here, so we came to help out."

"Guys, we got problems!" I heard Jo shout as she turned to look towards the labs. The entire corridor had begun to swarm with the shadowy monsters, rampaging down towards us. They started firing expertly, and Adam shrugged, grabbing the first one to reach him by the shoulders and proceeded to smash it heavily against the wall, killing it instantly.

"You lot had better get running. We won't be able to hold them for too long."

"But what about you?"

"We'll slow them down, just head up the main stairwell and pay the management a visit. Say hi to them for us, will you?" I agreed, I wanted a little payback from Styx anyway. We headed out, running full-pelt away from the rampaging monsters and the brave squad that was holding them back. Adam turned back to the creatures, grabbing the next one by the legs and swinging it straight into an approaching group that had decided to move along the corridor wall, crawling along like some sort of mad insect.

"I'm almost out!" Jo shouted, sliding a fresh clip into the smoking rifle, before opening fire once again.

"Come on! I'll rip your fucking ankles off!" He gave an almighty bellow before wading in, sending them flying left, right and centre.

---

Styx watched the flickering monitors with mild interest, tracking the progress of the Executioners. They were the new experimental prototypes of the Gemini, and he had to admit that they beat their predecessors in practically every way. The dosage of wraith virus in their bodies was significantly lower than in the standard Gemini, which meant that they didn't tend to mutate horribly, having to be hidden underneath armour all the time. Perfect for undercover missions.

The Shadows were getting out of hand. Creatures born from the energies of the Shadow Crystal, they could form in any place where there was darkness, automatically seeking out anything that wasn't made out of shadow and destroying it. It had occurred to Styx that they might have been wiping out the infection that was affecting the balance of the crystals. The only problem was that any living thing drew energy from the Light Crystal, which was what was causing the imbalance. This meant that the Shadows would not stop until everything was dead.

"Brother, this is getting out of control." He heard Acheron mutter from across the central control room, where technicians worked tirelessly to ensure that everything was in working order. The main problem was that Shadows had completely overrun the entire facility, and it wouldn't be long until they took out the back-up power supply, leaving them completely defenseless.

"Indeed. We need to complete Project Redemption before it's too late."

"How do you plan on doing that? Her protectors are too strong." Styx smiled darkly.

"Simple. We split them up. They're heading up the central stairwell, correct?"

"Yes, but I don't see how that will affect anything." Styx wandered over to the security control panel, and watched the flickering footage of the small group ascending the stairway. Tapping a button, he initiated the fire alarm, watching as the thick metal fire door slid down, splitting the party in two. He looked back at Acheron.

"See? Simple as that."

"You're a genius." Styx laughed.

"Wisdom begins where knowledge ends, dear brother. I'll take Cocytus with me to handle the two girls and the good doctor, you take a squad with you and sort out the part wraith and the scientist." He nodded, and Styx turned back to the monitor, watching with a grin as Joachim hammered on the door, while Rin watched nervously. It would be a mere picnic for Acheron. Shifting his view, he looked at Eve, Melissa and Alex, all examining the fire door with confusion. She would be his, whether she liked it or not...

* * *

That's it for this time, don't forget to review!

Chris


	8. Chapter Seven: Vengeance

Disclaimer: Look at the previous chapters, and if you have any queries, don't hesistate to contact me at the e-mail address provided my profile page. I'll cut you like meatloaf if you steal anything.

* * *

_**Chapter 7: Vengeance

* * *

**_

Joachim thumped the door one last time in rage, while Rin glanced around nervously. The blackouts were becoming more and more regular, occurring every few minutes. Each and every time they were plunged into darkness, more Shadows appeared, snarling and ready to rip them to pieces.

"Well this is just great!" Joachim shouted, giving the door a swift kick.

"We'll have to find a way around, that door isn't going to open for anything." He dived to the floor as Joachim launched a fiery spell at the Shadow that was about rip his head off.

"Which way do we go then?"

"That way." Rin pointed upwards.

"But isn't that the exact opposite direction to the way that the others can get to?"

"There's three stairwells in this place, they'll be heading for the west stairwell, so we can meet them up there." Joachim nodded, and they carried on upwards, climbing step after step.

---

"I don't think it's going to open." I muttered after my little examination of the situation. The regular heavy banging coming from the other side had stopped, leaving us in complete silence.

"Well, we could head for one of the other stairwells, and then we could meet them at the top." Alex suggested, and I nodded.

"Okay then, lead the way." We headed back down the stairs to a side door, which lead out into a deserted hallway. Alex led the way, while Melissa and me hung back slightly.

"So...I guess Styx is still alive then." She muttered. "Is he still the same perverted twisted bastard that he was back in my time?" I nodded.

"If anything, he's worse."

"Well that's great." She looked down at the floor. "I wonder what happened to the others. The last time I saw them all was back in the hospital just after..." She paused, unable to say it.

"It's okay, I saw it all." I explained.

"What?" She looked confused.

"Back when you were frozen, I went into your body and I saw your entire life flash before my eyes."

"Oh right...I bet that was embarrassing."

"Yeah, it's not so often you get to witness your conception." The west wall of the corridor we were walking down was windowed, showing the ruins of Zion far below us, the once-bustling city now completely silent, almost like a graveyard.

"Whatever happened to them all? Am I the only one left alive?" She whispered.

"We met Neil a few days ago." I replied. She swivelled around while walking.

"Really? How's he doing?"

"He's fine. He's got a wife and kid now, still one of the highest ranking paladins in Alexandria."

"That's good to hear." She paused. "I don't really think I have to ask about..."

"He killed himself right after he killed you." She nodded, closing her eyes.

"I thought so." She sighed. "What about Sam?"

"Died in childbirth."

"Childbirth? Is the kid still...ah, now I get it. That's why he looked so familiar." She grinned. "Looks just like his dad, just like you do." My heart twanged a little bit.

"Really?" She nodded.

"Yup, your eyes are exactly the same. Hair's the same colour too, plus you've got those cute little freckles around your nose." She noticed that Alex was looking at her strangely. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just I may have figured out how you were revived."

"Go on then."

"I did a little research a while back into the way that the spirit works. Turns out that the spirit is made up of three parts. The first and second parts are an exact copy of the mother and father's souls, and the third part is a combination of the two which makes up the person it inhabits. When you entered your mother's body, some of her spirit must have been exchanged from your soul to her empty body."

"You mean that I revived her?"

"Basically, yes. That small part must have begun to regenerate and reformed the entire soul. It also explains why Melissa has no memory of what happened after her death, because she was only carrying you until that point. Don't you see what this means?"

"No."

"It means that we've just discovered the route to eternal life! If the parent dies, then all we need to do is use a part of the child's spirit as a donor, and as long as the body can still support it, then we could reform their entire spirit. It's a miracle!" Suddenly, Melissa dropped to the floor, clutching her stomach in pain.

"What's wrong?" I asked, before noticing that her trousers were slowly becoming more and more drenched in blood. Alex kicked the wall in frustration.

"Damn! I thought something like this might happen."

"What?"

"You have to understand, when we removed you from her womb, her heart wasn't beating. We only stitched her back up in a basic fashion, because we didn't need to go any further with it."

"So what does that mean?" Melissa gasped through the pain.

"It's highly likely that due to the new blood pressure, the stitches we put inside your womb have split open."

"In other words, I'm bleeding to death!"

"Errm, yes." He looked around. "Look, the medical facilities are only just down here. If we can get you there, I might be able to do something about it." She nodded weakly, her face paling considerably. I helped her to her feet, carrying most of her weight on my shoulder while moving us along towards that glimmer of hope.

---

Neil sat numbly on the chair, staring blankly at the slowly darkening pool of blood in front of him. He didn't want to go into the dining room, he knew what would be waiting for him.

Suddenly, there was a noise, it sounded like a sob. It was coming from the dining room. His heart jumped through the ceiling before he charged in, looking wildly around the room. There was something under the table, something small and trembling. He ducked down to see Sal, curled up in the foetal position, tears running down his face. The instant he saw Neil, he shot into his arms, crying his eyes out. He was about to ask him where his mother was, but the following crash and bang answered that question immediately, as the roof splintered apart and Mikoto's dust covered body flew straight down into the table.

"Oh, nice of you to turn up." She muttered to her husband, who was beside himself with shock and confusion.

"What the hell is going on!"

"We got attacked by these dark monsters, but I managed to deal with the first two pretty quickly. I told Sal to stay here, while I sorted out the remaining few upstairs."

"Oh, right. There I was, thinking you were dead."

"You know me, it takes a lot more than that to kill a genome." She looked up to see the larger monster that had thrown her through the ceiling. It looked similar to a human, only made out of a light-absorbing darkness, and with two burning red eyes that glowed with malevolence.

"Great, more of them." Neil muttered as he put Sal down on the floor, pulling out his sword to face the new opponents.

---

Joachim and Rin found themselves in a new room, an incredible light burst from a mind-numbingly deep shaft in the centre of the room.

"The very centre of the tower." Rin explained. "That shaft runs right through from the roof to the Light Chamber far below."

"Yes, and it's a pity it'll be the last thing you ever see." Joachim swung around to see Acheron stood by the door, accompanied by at least eight Gemini soldiers.

"Acheron? What are you doing?" Rin asked, looking around at the menacing soldiers.

"I'm sorry Rin, but you've outlived your usefulness. Now that the Chronos is in full working order, we no longer need your expertise. It's a real shame, I was starting to like you too." He turned to the soldiers. "Kill them." Rin yelped as they all readied their weapons.

"Stick close to me." Joachim whispered while edging slowly towards the shaking scientist. The soldiers opened fire, the sharp retorts of their rifles echoing away down the shaft. However, the bullets they were firing pinged uselessly off the Protect spell that Joachim was casting. Acheron smiled.

"Hmph, just like your pathetic excuse for a father." He raised the ornate arm-blade and fired a single shot. Joachim jerked backwards in agony, feeling the small piece of metal tear straight through his chest, embedding in a wall somewhere behind him. "I learnt lessons from that mistake." He started to move in on the struggling warrior, bullets flitting past his body without so much as a flinch. Rin turned and ran, taking cover behind a piece of machinery in the corner, bullets ricocheting off the smooth metal surface of the chamber around him. Acheron signalled for the others to sort out Rin, while he advanced closer and closer on Joachim.

Acheron grabbed him by the neck, lifting him off the ground, the floor beneath him slowly becoming more and more blood-splattered from the fast-flowing wound in the centre of Joachim's chest.

"Hmm, that makes two male generations of your family, both wiped out by the same person. No doubt Styx and Cocytus have already sorted out the other three members of your group. It's pretty useless resisting it now." He smiled darkly. "I think it would be incredibly ironic to die in the same pitiful way as the man who created you, wouldn't you think?"

"You're missing one thing Acheron." Joachim spluttered calmly.

"And what would that be?"

"My father wasn't part-wraith. That's a gift I got from my mother..." He could feel the transformation begin, his body becoming more and more warped as Firenze took over. _"...and now you're going to pay for what you did to us!"_

Everything happened in slow-motion. Acheron thrusted forwards, pushing both of them towards the nigh-on bottomless shaft behind them. With one final shove, he launched both of them over the edge, now tumbling helplessly through the air as they fell closer and closer to the Light Chamber far beneath them. However, Joachim's demonic transformation was now complete, and with a mighty swoosh of his leathery wings, he knocked Acheron loose, sending him spiralling downwards while Firenze soared back up towards Rin's hiding place. The last thing he saw of the man who had killed his father was a rapid disappearing figure in the far distance, screaming in terror before being cut off abruptly by the incredible impact of hitting the floor at over fifty metres per second, every single bone in his body shattering in an instant.

Unluckily for Acheron, he lived beyond the initial impact, leaving him lying in a soul-destroying agony for several minutes before his body simply shut down because of the pain.

The eight soldiers that had been firing at Rin suddenly noticed that not only had their leader just been vanquished, but that a rather large winged hell-beast was baring down on them at an alarming rate. Most of them had no idea how to react before being torn to shreds by lethally-sharp claws. Some of them fired at him in futility, but were soon blown apart by a multitude of potent spells, spreading huge bucketfuls of dark red blood everywhere.

Slowly and carefully, Rin poked his head out from cover, observing the scene of mass slaughter in terror. Before long, Joachim had returned to normal, panting heavily in exhaustion, while healing up the bullet wound in the middle of his chest, which was still spouting blood like a water fountain.

"I'm going to need to rest for a little while, okay?" He explained to the terrified scientist before falling unconscious.

---

I sat outside the operating theatre, tapping my foot nervously. Alex had been in there for almost an hour now, insisting that I shouldn't watch because "it wouldn't be too pretty", and for that I was thankful. Quite frankly, I didn't fancy watching my mother being cut open and then stitched back up.

I sat on the uncomfortable metal bench, gazing out of the window into the night sky. Of course, it wasn't night time at all, it was just the lack of sunlight that made it appear that way. Slowly each of the burning dots of light in the sky were going out, even the moon was beginning to grow dull. It wouldn't be long before everything ceased to exist, but what could we do about it?

The door beside me slid open swiftly, interrupting my line of thought, revealing a rather stressed-looking Alex, his face drenched with sweat.

"She's fine, the anaesthetic won't last much longer, so she'll be awake in no time."

"How'd it go?" I asked, slightly worried.

"It would have been a hell of a lot easier if we had a white mage present. At least then I wouldn't have had to cut her open again. He sank down onto the bench beside me, sighing in frustration. "I can't believe how stupid I've been."

"What do you mean?"

"I should have left this place years ago, after seeing what they were doing to you. I shouldn't have had a hand in this debacle."

"You did what you could, I'm not blaming you for any of this."

"If you knew what had happened during your childhood, you wouldn't be saying that." This response caught be off guard. Even with my memory fully restored, I only remembered what I was concious for. Since I was drugged up a lot, that wasn't much. "I saw the way Styx looked at you, watching you as you grew up. I know what he's capable of, and it scared me." Somehow I wasn't surprised.

"Yeah I know, I found that out tonight." He shook his head sadly.

"That wasn't the first time. I've lost count of how many times he's done that to you. After I noticed the first time, I did what I could to prevent you from suffering any more."

"What did you do?" My voice was shaking slightly.

"I'll put it a simpler way, you're never going to have children, because you have nothing to create one with. I couldn't let you end up carrying one of his foul offspring, so I did the only thing I could to stop him." We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

"...thank you." I whispered. At that moment, the door slid open to reveal Melissa, shaking her head to clear off the remaining numbness in her system.

"Christ, my stomach hurts." She muttered.

"Well, I did just cut you open. You don't come off something like that without any pain."

"Thanks doc. At least I'm not going to bleed to death."

"No, but I'm sure I could do something to change that." I swung around to find the source of the new voice, a chilling female drawl coming from the other end of the hallway. The woman it had come from wore a long luxurious black and white gown, her silver hair made up perfectly, some loose locks falling across her slender chest. Her vivid purple eyes gaze off such a cold gaze, I almost withered beneath it's intensity. She yawned quietly, before revealing a small slender silver pistol. "I'm sorry doctor, but it's seems you contract with us has been..." She pointed it directly at Alex and fired, his body jerking backwards against the chair. He gasped in agony, a dark red blot quickly growing across the white coat he wore. "...terminated." She finished, smiling darkly.

I grabbed the ailing doctor, my hands quickly becoming slick with his warm sticky blood. His sharp intakes of breath rattled on for a few seconds, his hands clenching and unclenching in agony, his mouth moving to form words, but his body unable to propel them into something audible. Eventually, he passed away, his body giving one last shudder before falling completely still, his glassy eyes gazing blankly into the middle-distance.

"You bitch!" I jumped and grabbed her by the neck, shoving her up against the wall.

"Well that isn't very lady-like, is it?"

"Shut up! He was an innocent man!" She smiled once again.

"No-one is innocent, we all play a part in this crazy story." I heard a familiar voice coming from behind me, followed by a strangled cry. I turned my head sharply to see Styx, grinning with his usual twisted smile, holding the long silver rapier against my mother's neck. "It appears we have a little stand-off. If you let my sister go, I'll let your mother live beyond the next fifteen seconds." Melissa slowly shook her head, her gaze strangely calm for someone about to be killed. The anaesthetic in her body was still enough to stop her from fighting too well, but she wasn't going to go ahead and give up without a fight.

In one instant, everything burst into life. Melissa quickly phased between realms, releasing herself from Styx's grip. However, she couldn't stay in the material realm for more than a split second, due to the fact they were well over two-hundred metres above the ocean there. She quickly re-appeared, diving forwards across the floor, reaching for the rifle I had left stupidly by the bench. While she had been doing that, I had pulled Cocytus away from the wall, putting her between me and Styx as he raised his rapier to strike at Melissa. Quickly, I shoved the struggling woman into her brother, and winced in shock as his blade, which had been aiming for my mother, went straight through her chest instead, poking out through her back covered in blood.

Styx dropped to the floor, gently holding his sister before Melissa had reached the rifle, opening fire with the last remaining rounds straight towards Styx, who was unfortunately holding Cocytus in a position that blocked the incoming shots. She screamed as round after round flew into her body, before falling limp in her brother's arms, blood steadily dripping onto the floor. He shook her gently, his eyes wide in horror.

"Sister? Wake up, please." For the first time in my life, I saw him in a new light. He was like a child trapped in a man's body, gently shaking his sister's body in a vain attempt to wake her up.

In fact, I almost pitied him.

It wasn't his fault that he had been raised that way, knowing nothing but hatred and suffering ever since he had been born, or even created. But then I remembered all that he had done, especially to me, and I knew that he was beyond salvation. I walked over and picked up the pistol she had dropped, turning it towards Styx, who jumped to his feet, completely unarmed, staring terrified into the barrel of the gun.

"How does it feel Styx? How does it feel to get a taste of your own foul medicine?" I pointed it at his right leg, pulling the trigger. He cried out and dropped to the floor, clutching his leg in agony. I stood over him, watching him squirm, before pulling the trigger again, this time the shuddering pistol launched a bullet into his other leg, and he cried out again, trembling in sheer pain. I slid the clip out, checking how may shots I had left. I counted five, which was easily enough for what I was planning on doing.

"Please don't." He begged, shuddering through the immense pain. I ignored him and fired another shot, the loud retort echoing down the hall.

"Eve..." I heard my mother whisper behind me. I panted heavily in sheer anger, putting another shot into his right arm, this one barely causing him to cry out, his expression one of a man beyond pain.

"How does it feel to be killed by the weapon you created? How does it feel to be torn apart by the one you relished hurting!" With each demand, I got angrier, hatred coursing through my veins.

He whimpered in pain. I fired another bullet into his other arm, and he barely flinched, before his expression cleared.

"How ironic. We both have no future..." The next shot went into his chest, and this one caused a considerable effect, gasping in shock. I had one shot left, and I knew exactly where I was going to put it.

"Any last words?" I muttered, aiming straight at his face. He smiled faintly.

"You'd...make...a good...Gemini..." He whispered, coughing violently, spraying a fine mist of blood across his purple petticoat. I fell silent, before the last shot echoed down the corridor, and he fell completely still, the pool of blood beneath him growing slowly outwards.

I panted heavily, my trembling hands sending the gun clattering to the floor. I slowly slumped down on the bench, gazing emptily at the window in front of me. What had happened to me? He'd done a lot to me, hurt me in more ways than previously thought possible, and I killed him in such a torturous way. Two wrongs didn't make a right, there was no valid reason for me to have acted that way, so why had I done it?

I felt a soft hand on my shoulder, comforting me.

"What did he do to deserve that?" Melissa asked quietly, looking down at the bloodied corpses that lay strewn across the floor. I told her what had happened. "I see..." She whispered finally. "It must have hurt."

"A lot. I still don't know why they did all this though." I muttered, before realising that the answer was staring blankly at the ceiling. "I'll be back in a second." I told her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to find the reason why from the man himself." I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes, repeating the familiar process of detaching my mind from my body, before floating effortlessly from my shell and into the air. With one swift movement, I drifted down towards Styx's empty body, and with great reluctance, I drifted into it, becoming one with the fragmented memories within.

---

_An empty darkness surrounded me, swallowing me whole. Slowly, the scenery began to change, slowly becoming lighter and lighter._

_I was stood in the middle of a large chamber, a throne room of some sort, with a massive window showing a rain-lashed fortress, occasional flashes of lightning illuminating the room. Candles flickered dimly, shedding little light on the overwhelming darkness in the room. At the very head of the room, in front of the window, stood a dark man, his long black coat hanging around his ankles, laced with the deepest shade of crimson possible. I kneeled before the awesome aura of power this man emanated, like the heat that the sun showers upon us, bowing my head in respect._

"_You requested my presence, master?" I asked, unmoving from my spot. The man turned around, showing his face, an intricate tattoo wound it's way up the side of his face, his cold emerald gaze focused directly on me._

"_Soon our plan will be in motion, and I need to know that I can rely on you to succeed."_

"_I will do whatever you command." Lazarus paused for a second, studying my face intensely._

"_I want you to head out to the Desert Palace on the north-east continent of Gaia, where you will find a gate. It is highly likely that those pathetic beings will be there to protect it. Take the others, and kill all of them."_

"_Yes master." I bowed again, and got up to leave._

"_I have a wedding to attend." Lazarus muttered, picking up his crossbow from the desk and leaving just behind me._

_The scene changed once again, and I found myself in a ruined town, holding a crippled girl in my arms, blood slowly oozing out of her mouth, my long silver blade sunk up to the hilt in her left shoulder, poking out through her back. Her curled brown hair was slightly matted with deep dark sticky blood, and her gently blue eyes were lolling slightly in her head, as she struggled to keep consciousness. I was aware of another person behind me, lying unconscious by a dying tree, and I felt dark thoughts surface in my mind. Slowly, a creepy smile crept across my face, and I carefully moved my hand along her slender stomach, stroking it gently through blood-drenched top she was wearing. I looked up at the small house she had emerged from before, and the idea in my head started to grow, like a malignant cancer, as I carried her indoors..._

"_Why do we not strike them now? We could easily crush them!" The scene had changed, and now I was out in some sort of giant workshop, a colossal piece of machinery towered over me, tiny figures climbing all over the boggling array of scaffolds that surrounded the giant beast. Every now and then, minuscule specks of light sprang away to fade and dim as they fell, and the air was filled with the sound of heavy clanking and crackling. Acheron wandered along the walkway in front of me, his gaze upon the Babel, the gigantic monstrosity that stood before them, almost completed and ready for action._

"_I don't know, but the master knows what he is doing." He replied, coming to stop and leaning on the cold metal barrier of the walkway. "Besides, I have been given my orders already, as have you."_

"_But you get the best part, leading the Imaginary Numbers directly into the heart of the city, I get stuck with Cocytus on the warzone up front."_

"_At least the two of you will get to wipe out the leader of the Spiritseers. I just have to flatten a couple of pesky bugs." I knew who he spoke of, I had to admit I'd grown quite attached to them. I would almost be sorry to see them perish. Still, the master's orders were absolute, the last person who argued was thrown into the molten titanium they were using to build the Babel with._

_I watched as the glass chamber in front of me opened, revealing a confused-looking Acheron, his long silver hair matted to his body, the advanced polymer suit he wore was wet with the growth enhancers that had been put in the tube to grow him a new body so quickly. _

"_So much for crushing those bugs." I muttered, and he looked at me in a slightly peeved way._

"_One of them won't be coming back, I made sure of that."_

"_Just the one? The master won't be pleased with you."_

"_I don't think the master will be pleased with anyone at the moment, he's dead." I heard Cocytus reply from the back of the growth chamber._

"_What! How can this be?" Acheron looked down in shock._

"_The boy he was possessing had second thoughts about having our great master in his body, so he killed himself."_

"_Didn't he just escape?" Cocytus shook her head sorrowfully._

"_It was the Nilith that he skewered himself with. It carved it's way through both of them."_

"_So what do we do now?" Acheron stroked his chin. An idea burst into my head, one so perfect it made me grin with delight._

"_Let us go take a look at the scene of the crime, shall we?" I gestured towards the door, smiling._

_Another scene flashed before my eyes, this time I was in some sort of medical room, everything was a gleaming clinical white. In the hospital bed in front of me lay a young, beautiful woman, her light brown hair lay in cascading locks across her peaceful face. She was sleeping so peacefully, and I walked over, looking at the security camera mounted on the wall, knowing full-well who would be watching on the other side of it. Slowly, I ran my fingers down her cheek, stroking it softly, before sitting down on the bed beside her, wondering where to start..._

_Again, the scene changed, and I now found myself sat in my room, lying on my luxurious bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. It was all coming together now, the plan was falling into place._

_There was a knock on the door._

"_Enter." I watched the long grey drapes that fell down loose over the bed sway in the breeze created by the door opening. I turned my head to see Acheron standing by the door, an eyebrow raised in surprise._

"_You look relaxed, something must be going right for a change." He muttered. "We're starting the first few tests on the Chronos shortly. How is it going with the girl?"_

"_They've finished implanting all the skills she'll need. As soon as her mind recovers, we can manipulate it into doing our bidding." Acheron showed a rapid sign of discomfort._

"_Are you sure this will work? It all seems a little far-fetched."_

"_All we need to do is ensure that the master remains alive. We can do this by sending the girl back to that moment, and then she can aid him in any way possible."_

"_Yes, but..." I sighed, sitting up._

"_What is so difficult to understand? We both know that our master was killed when the person he had control over decided to go all suicidal. The only reason he didn't survive is because there was no-one in the immediate vicinity to jump to. With the girl there, he would have someone to go to, and then simply finish off the foolish idiots once and for all. Then he can finish his mission by destroying the Light Crystal, and all will be well." Acheron sighed._

"_I suppose you're correct, but I still have a bad feeling about this."_

_The final scene burst into my mind, this one as fresh as an open wound. I lay knelt on the floor, holding Cocytus in my arms, staring in horror at the blade that had pushed it's way straight through her abdomen. Blood was dribbling from her thin pale lips, running down her face and dripping onto the floor. I'd killed her, I'd killed my only remaining member of family. The sheer horror of the moment hit me in the face like a brick._

"_Sister? Please wake up." I whispered helplessly, holding onto the hope that she wasn't dead, that she was just horribly hurt. I looked up to see the same light-brown haired girl from before, the biological weapon we'd worked so hard on, standing by the window, her wonderful blue eyes showing the slightest bit of pity. But that soon passed, as she stepped forwards and picked up Cocytus's tiny silver pistol and pointed directly at me. Slowly, I laid my sister's body down and stood up to face the woman I had had my way with barely hours before this moment. Her expression was one of intense hatred, and it terrified me. I'd never seen someone so full of anger and sheer hatred before._

"_How does it feel Styx? How does it feel to get a taste of your own foul medicine?" The gun flashed, and I felt an intense pain shoot through my right leg. I cried out and clutched the wound, the blood from my sister mingling with my own, before falling to the floor, never taking my eyes off the terrifying girl before me. Again she fired, this time the agony struck my other leg, just above the knee, and I cried out again, gritting my teeth through the intense agony. I begged for mercy, but she just unleashed another bullet, this one hitting me in the thigh, although I knew what she had been aiming for. A few seconds later, I felt another pain in my arm, my senses starting to dull through the overwhelming agony I was undergoing.  
"How does it feel to be killed by the weapon you created? How does it feel to be torn apart by the one you relished hurting!" She screamed at me. I realised as I looked at her that she reminded me of myself. We'd both been created, rather than born. I began to wonder where everything had gone wrong though._

"_How ironic. We both have no future..." I was cut off by another shot, this one I felt deeply as it flew into my chest, puncturing a lung. I struggled to keep breathing, my vision beginning to fade as she pointed the weapon directly towards my head._

"_Any last words?" I faintly heard her mutter, and I noticed that the way she stood, the cold heartlessness on her face, reminded me off something, but it took me a few seconds to think of what it could be._

"_You'd...make...a good...Gemini..."I strained myself to speak those words, choking on the blood slowly filling my lungs. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and I welcomed oblivion...

* * *

_

That's it for this chapter peeps, I'm off on holiday now, although I'll be back on Tuesday!

Adios amigos!

Chris


	9. Chapter Eight: Apocalypse

Disclaimer: Check the previous chapters, and if you have any queries, don't hesitate to contact me at the e-mail address provided in my profile. Stealing any of these ideas is punishable in ways that you can't possibly imagine.

A/N: Whoa, it's been a while hasn't it? Nothing much to comment on really, just enjoy.

* * *

_**Chapter 8: Apocalypse

* * *

**_

I laid back in my warm comforting body, thinking about what I had just seen. Some of the horrors Styx had witnessed where indescribable, events that would haunt my sleep for the rest of my life. It was no wonder that he had become such a monster, after learning from such a young age that he'd been created, not born. It was much worse than as it had been with me, at least I had known that my parents had existed, one of them was now sat comforting me. The only influence he'd had on his life had been Lazarus, and he hadn't exactly been a perfect role model.

My mind kept flicking back to his last words. My ruthlessness had shocked even me, even after he begged for mercy I had continued to torture him. I had shown him no remorse whatsoever, killing him in cold blood after dragging him through a horrific amount of pain and suffering. Were we really so different?

Then again, the scars he inflicted on me would never heal, scenes from my ordeal were still fresh in my mind, vague memories from the years I had spent under his watch still haunted me. What about my powers? Would I have the strength to use them for the right reasons, or would I end up killing indiscriminately?

"We have to get moving." Melissa hugged me a little, breaking my line of thought. "The others will be waiting for us." I nodded reluctantly, before climbing to my feet and taking one last look at the silent corpses that lay before us, and moved on down towards the other stairwell.

---

"Do you fancy waking up any time soon?" Joachim could faintly here Rin's voice as his body slowly awoke, with a groan.

"Jeez, it feels like someone rammed an arrow into my heart." He muttered, slowly coming around.

"Close enough. It was a bullet, not an arrow, and it was your left lung, not your heart." Rin smiled as Joachim climbed to his feet, wiping his hands on his coat to remove some of the blood.

"_Oh that felt good."_ Firenze commented cheerily. Joachim had to agree, he'd finally claimed vengeance on the man who had destroyed his chance at a happy life. Now all that remained was to continue towards the control room, and hope to the powers-that-be that the others were safe.

Suddenly, the immense light coming from the central shaft of the chamber flickered alarmingly, casting eerie shadows across the metallic room.

"It looks like we haven't got long left." Rin gazed at the failing light worriedly.

---

Neil sat dejectedly by the window in the living room, the house bathed in total darkness. Mikoto knelt by the fireplace, trying to light it in puzzlement. There was a deep chill in the air, one that seemed to sap the life out of any fire she managed to actually light, killing it instantly.

Suddenly, Neil noticed a wounded man in the street outside the house, struggling along visibly in pain. He swooped out of the door quickly, the temperature dropping even further as it opened, his rapid breath billowing out as a fine white mist before him.

The man was wearing pretty old-looking armour, crafted expertly from what seemed to be deep black dragon-hide, slashes desecrated the beauty of the armour. It was lined with some other form of animal skin, this time it was a bright scarlet red, blending in with the colour of the blood that practically covered every inch of his body. His gingery auburn hair was plastered to his head, and his face was splattered with drying crusty deep brown-ish red blood, his eyes flickering as he teetered on the thin line between conciousness and unconsciousness. It was with a jolt that Neil realised he recognised this person.

"Calum? Christ, what happened to you?" The man grinned weakly.

"I picked a bad day to pay a visit, didn't I?" He coughed. Neil helped him up, Calum's feet dragging along the damp cobbles behind them. He sat him down on a chair inside and set to work on his wounds. Most of them weren't that bad, only a few cut deeper than an inch into flesh. The dragon-hide could stand up to practically anything human and monster alike could throw at it.

"So, what have you been up to then?" Mikoto asked, and Calum laughed.

"Not as much as you two, just the same old stuff really. Trade's been booming with the re-appearance of all those old monsters. You can sell those Marlboro tentacles for a ton these days, they're good for protection against disease when treated in the right chemicals." He looked at the small half-genome child you was staring in a combination of horror and awe at the wounded warrior in front of him. "I don't think I need to ask what you two have been up to." He grinned at Sal, who looked a little confused at how to react, taking to peering nervously out from behind the sofa instead.

"What brings you here then? I take it that it wasn't for a nice neighbourly chat?"

"Nah, I noticed what was going on out there. I was heading here to see whether you knew anything about those shadow creatures stalking the plains now." He looked up at the ceiling, wincing as Neil pinched together one of the deeper slashes. "I saw one a few months ago, but they've been multiplying like rabbits since then. I came back to Alexandria to see what was being done about it, since it was kinda wrecking my trade a little, and I find the whole place overrun with them." Neil and Mikoto looked at each other in worry.

"How bad is it out there?" Mikoto asked, her brow creased anxiously.

"Like a graveyard, there's barely anyone left alive. Those monsters have painted the city red with the blood of the innocent." He looked directly at Neil. "You know something, don't you?"

"I have my suspicions, but if I'm right, none of this will matter anytime soon. The whole universe is going to go shebang on us." He explained to Calum and Mikoto about the crystals, and what effect it would have. The entire room fell into a ghastly silence.

"Mum, what does that mean?" Mikoto took her son in her arms, comforting him.

"It just means that we're all going to have to move to a safe place." Neil and Calum looked at each other worriedly. They both knew exactly what was going to happen. There would nothing but Oblivion left once the Universe collapsed, and that would be it for them. Neither of them had the heart to tell the small child before them that they were all about to die.

---

I resisted the urge to vomit as we entered the control room, the flickering panels and terminals were smeared with blood, dismembered corpses of technicians and staff lay strewn across the place, their lifeless eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Some of them didn't even have a discernible head left, nothing but a mashed pulp of what their bodies used to be. The stench was revolting, the sickly scent of copper wafted through the air, a fragrance that would have a vampire grinning with joy.

Melissa didn't seem as affected, idly watching as a globule of blood slowly dribbled down the main screen at the centre of the room, cracks making their way across it like an out-of-control spider web.

"I'm glad to see you made it." I heard a small quivering voice from the other side of the morbid chamber, as Rin stood up and revealed himself, his crumpled lab coat spattered with millions of tiny specks of blood, looking more like a spotted handkerchief than a person. Joachim stood next to him, now shirtless, a small red mark on his chest just beneath his heart. My heart jumping with glee, I ran over to give him a hug, only to end up upside down on the floor after slipping on the slick coat of blood on the ground. He shook his head and laughed warmly, stretching out his hand to help me to my feet. I took it, but the instant we made contact, a searing flash of light burst into my head, shocking me for an instant.

_I stared at the young woman lying prone on the blood-soaked bed, her clothes a complete mess. It seemed that the horrific wound in her body had been healed slightly, just enough so it didn't kill her, yet enough to keep her too weak to fight back. Her eyes twinkled, her face wet with tears. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realise what had just happened, and a deep sense of bitterness and sadness swelled up deep inside me, closely followed by an intense burning hatred and anger for whoever had done this to her._

As soon as it had begun, it stopped, leaving me highly confused, my hand in his. I allowed him to pick me up, my mind concentrating on what I had just witnessed. I knew from my intense search through Styx's mind that the woman in that memory had been Samantha, Joachim's mother. However, how had that memory got into Joachim's body? I remembered something that Alex had said, about our souls being made up by parts of our parents spiritual essence. Could it be possible that I had just witnessed a memory from Joachim's father?

"Something wrong?" He seemed to notice the quick change in my expression, but I gave him a smile.

"Nah, just thinking about what a mess we're all in." It was then that I noticed the thoughtful expression on Rin's face as he walked over to one of the terminals.

"I wonder..." He muttered, and I felt my hopes rise. He was an intelligent man, and he knew more about this situation than the rest of us put together. Perhaps he'd thought of something?

"Onto something Rin?" Joachim asked, and there was a dejected sigh from the wise scientist.

"I'm just checking how long with have left until a UEF occurs."

"A UEF?"

"Universal Existence Failure. It's the final product of a catastrophic imbalance between the crystals." He tapped a few more buttons. "Fire, Earth, Water, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Light and Shadow. All of them will fail, causing the universe to collapse back into it's orginal form. We call it Oblivion. Nothing exists, absolutely nothing."

"How long do we have?"

"Two hours...at maximum...In an hour we'll start to notice the beginning of the energy reaction that will destroy everything." He smiled. "However, I have an idea." He turned back to the monitor, groaning in revulsion as he wiped some of the blood away. "Basically, we were doing some investigation into the dimensions that govern our existence. We all know the tri-lateral dimensions that we live in, right? Well, we found away to access the so-called "Fourth Dimension", otherwise known as..."

"...Time." Joachim finished.

"Exactly. So we started work on finding a way to access this time stream that flows through our universe, and we came up with the Chronos. The basic rules of time and space show that the faster something is going, the less time affects it. Moving at the speed of light, time completely stops for the object that is moving." He pointed to the diagram on the screen, a complex-looking device that looked like a glass ball mounted on three insect legs. "If we give the molecules in an object enough energy, it can exceed the amount of energy need to travel at the speed of light. We've tested it, and managed to send several subjects back in time by several hours."

"Hold on a second. If you sent them back by several hours, wouldn't they have turned up before you sent them back?" Melissa looked a little puzzled.

"Confusing, isn't it? While we were analysing the results of this, we came up with something startling. It seemed that every time we sent something back, we registered a massive feedback of energy from some unknown point. Turns out, we were opening up a different time stream. Each and every time we did it, we created a separate turn of events. Obviously, with the objects we were sending back, it wasn't changing anything much."

"I think I get it." I replied, my brain whirling with thought. "It's the same as the Parallel World Theory. Every time something happens, there's a whole set of worlds created in which something different happened." Rin nodded.

"What I was thinking is that if we could transport something twenty years into the past, to some how warn the Spiritseers of impending doom, then maybe we would could stop any of this from ever happening. Perhaps we could alter the course of the universe, so it would go down a different path."

I pondered this. Could it be possible? Could we somehow change the course of history? Melissa shrugged.

"It's pretty much all we've got at the moment, isn't it? We're all going to die anyway, so we may as well try and help out in some way before we go." She looked down, an odd look on her face. "I know there's a heck of a lot we'd need to change, but it all stems from one person."

"Lazarus." Both Joachim and myself muttered. She nodded in agreement.

"Putting Lazarus out of action, along with a few other key events should be enough to change things for the better." She finished. When I thought of all the things that we could change, I actually grew quite excited. Maybe we could stop our parents from dying too, to have the life we never had?

"So what are we going to send back?" I asked. Rin looked a little nervous as he turned to us.

"I know this sounds a little crazy, but it might be better if we send _someone _back instead." I blinked a few times in shock.

"You want to send one of us _back in time_?"

"Well, if it was a person, then they would know what was about to happen, and could hopefully do something to stop it." He looked a little nervous however. "It's just...I don't know whether or not it will work. We registered huge energy bursts in the cells of the objects we sent back. It's possible that the process could completely destroy the person traveling through time. It's an incredible risk."

"I'll do it." Melissa answered, but Rin shook his head.

"That could be even worse. How would you react to meeting yourself? It's possible that the mere action would cause a time paradox and blow apart the space-time continuum. I wouldn't be able to go back either, I was still around then too."

"Then that just leaves..." I trailed off when I realised what was about to happen.

"I'll go." Joachim replied, but I slapped my hand on his shoulder.

"Hold on just a cotton-picking second here, you're not going anywhere without me."

"But it'll be dangerous. I can't risk putting you through anything else." I looked at him in mild anger.

"So you'd rather leave me here to blow up with the rest of the universe? What makes you think you're the only one who wants things to be different?" He floundered speechlessly.

"You both realise that this will be a suicide mission? Once we've sent you back, there'll be no chance of return." Rin explained, before smiling. "Like you'd actually want to though."

"So what will happen when we sort things out?"

"Well, this turn of events will cease to exist, along with anything else that came from it. That means both of you will cease to exist in your current forms. However, as long as you manage to sort things out correctly, there'll be a different version of you two that will exist later on."

"Hopefully, they'll get a better life than we did." Joachim muttered. Rin looked back at the screen, frowning.

"We'd better get moving, there's only one hour and fifty minutes before this place vanishes." With a rapid agreement, we followed him back towards the Chronos Lab, leaving the horrifying chamber of the dead behind.

When we arrived, the forlorn laboratory was completely deserted, an unbearable silence engulfed the entire room. Rin quickly set to work, sitting down at a plain-looking white desk with a computer sat on top of it. The flickering lights in the room signaled that time was running out, casting dark shadows across the eerie chamber. Fortunately, no monsters appeared, it almost seemed as if they'd given up trying to heal the wound the Shadow Crystal was causing, leaving the world to it's own devices. I walked over to the panoramic window along one side of the room, showing the ruins of Zion. The lab was situated on a pretty low level in the headquarters, so I could see the very tops of the shattered buildings at eye level. However, this wasn't the most captivating sight available.

It was the sky.

The sky was a boiling mass of deep brown and black, massive clouds and cracks of lightning illuminated it, rolling around each other in a tangled mess of horror. Both moons had now vanished, the distant twinkling lights of the stars were long dead. All that remained was a sight that would have disfigured the very depths of Hell. It was almost as if the sky was boiling away in an agonising turmoil as the universe entered it's death throes.

"That's just scary..." I muttered, entranced by this shocking event that was unfolding. I felt Melissa draw up beside me, also observing the horror outside.

"Good god..." I suddenly noticed someone else beside her, a young black haired man, his emerald eyes transfixed on the scene unfolding before us. He was wearing a long black cotton coat of some sort, a small white streak through his hair, and the coat he wore also bore white streaks at certain points.

"Who are you?" I asked, and he turned his gaze on me, looking somewhat familiar as he did. His complexion and facial features bore more than a passing resemblance to Melissa's, almost as if he was a sibling.

"The name's Nova, I'm her guardian." He indicated to my mother, who nodded in agreement.

"You did a fat lot of good helping us out earlier." She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Sorry, but that anesthetic had a much stronger effect on me than it did on you."

"Erm, where did you just come from?" I asked, puzzled. It seemed as though he had just popped out of thin air next to her. I hadn't heard the door open at all for the past few minutes either. He rolled his eyes and looked at Melissa.

"Are you going to explain, or shall I?"

"Spiritseers are assigned with a guardian at birth, a creature that their very soul is linked to. They can transform into any creature that takes their fancy, but they tend to stick to certain forms more than others. Kirjava, Chris's guardian, preferred a dragon form to others, much like Nova here." She explained.

"But...why don't I have one then?"

"It must have been because of the way you came into the world." She stopped to think for a few seconds, before moving her hands around her neck, revealing a beautiful pendant, with a twinkling sapphire mounted directly in the centre of an eye. She slowly removed it, took one final look at it, and put her hand out towards me.

"No, I can't..." I tried to reason with her.

"Normally, you would have been given one of your own when you came of age, but as you can see, there aren't many of us left to ensure that traditions are kept. Just make sure nobody sees it when you go back in time, I'm sure it would look a little suspicious if we saw you wearing an exact copy of my pendant." I nodded, before carefully taking it from her. It was wonderfully light, and my hand tingled gently as I held it, the chain dangling loosely from my hand, glittering in the flickering light.

"Alright, that should do it." I heard Rin announce. "Time for you two to get in." I looked at my mother.

"I guess this is it then." She smiled, before kissing me lightly on the cheek and embracing me warmly. "Good luck." I turned away, taking one last look at her before Rin lead Joachim and myself down into the Chronos chamber.

Tenderly, we stepped along the thin metal walkway that lead into the large shining glass sphere. My heart was pumping away at top speed in my chest as Rin stopped me, pulling out a small metallic device from his coat pocket.

"You two may need this. I uploaded all the data I could find in the data banks about what happened back then, so if you need to know anything, you just need to consult that little gadget for aid. Just make sure no-one apart from the two of you see this. If it was to fall into the wrong hands, it could spell the end for us all." Joachim nodded in understanding. I smiled at the little scientist, and leaned forwards to kiss him gently on the cheek.

"Thanks." I whispered. His cheeks quickly became the exact same shade as a cherry, and he shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Ah, it's nothing. Just sort everything out will you?" I nodded and carried on up the ramp into the Chronos.

The whole room seemed to resonate with a powerful aura, almost as if I could brush the very fabric of space and time if I moved my hand. It was a glaring white, shaped like a massive dome with the Chronos squatting silently and benevolently in the centre, like a wise old master waiting to teach the world his skills.

Once we were inside, the feeling intensified, and I began to feel quite nervous, the gentle butterflies in my stomach now transforming into a swarm of wasps, stinging my insides. I watched in curiosity as Rin retreated back to the control room, which I could faintly see through the giant glass window that showed the operators what was happening. I felt Joachim's hand grasp mine gently, reassuring me that nothing was about to go wrong.

"Nervous?" He asked, and I nodded weakly. We were about to go where no human being had gone before, into the very depths of time itself.

"This may feel slightly uncomfortable." Rin's voice sounded over the loudspeaker, his tiny voice being amplified into a bounding mass of noise that boomed across the Chronos chamber. I watched as the three lithe metallic limbs out on the sides of the machine slowly started to rotate around the glass sphere we were stood in, a faint humming sound coming from beneath our feet. Gradually, it grew faster and faster, and I became aware of a buzzing sound, like that of a trapped fly, in my ears. Joachim seemed to notice this too, as he looked around uncertainly. The shining whirring legs were getting faster, now nothing but a silvery blur that enveloped us in it's humming whirlwind. I watched outside, and my heart almost stopped, my brain deciding to perform a parachute jump out of the back of my skull.

There was a fly outside the glass sphere, making it's way across the room as flies do. However, as it progressed further and further, it began to get slower and slower. I pressed my face up against the glass, ignoring the intense vibrations being emitted, watching every single beat of it's wings in a surreal sort of slow-motion. After about a minute, it completely stopped, perfectly suspended in the air, unmoving like a photo.

Suddenly, there I felt a dull ache across my entire body. I'd barely noticed it before, but it was growing more and more apparent as time went by. The buzzing in my ears intensified, becoming a insane consistent droning. I looked at the fly, which had now started moving again, but this time it was slightly different. It's tiny black form slowly began to move backwards, it's wings beating faster and faster until I could no longer detect the individual beats.

"Whoa." Joachim muttered, one hand on his head, his face pale. A few seconds later he lay unconscious on the hard metal floor of the chamber. The dull ache was now growing into a intense burning pain, unlike anything I'd experienced before. Every inch of my body hurt, every cell, every individual molecule was in agony. I began to feel dizzy, and I struggled to stay conscious as I hit the floor, vaguely sensing the chilling cold of the metal surface, before blacking out.

---

Rin watched in amazement as Eve and Joachim's forms completely vanished from sight, and the Chronos's stabilisers slowly ground to a halt, leaving the chamber completely silent. He gazed intently at the panel in front of him, detecting a powerful burst of energy from a point of unknown origin. It had succeeded, he'd accomplished what was previously thought to be impossible, and yet what did it mean? He'd spent his whole life on a quest to recover the lost knowledge of the Spiritseers, and he'd finally achieved the end result, five minutes before the entire universe ground to a halt. He closed his eyes. He could have gone out and found love, but instead he'd spent his life up to his neck in diagrams, wires, and gadgets. It almost seemed like a waste.

But then he remembered why he had just done this. It was for the sake of the future, and he'd played his part in the story of life. Now it was time to bow out for the final curtain.

He turned away from his final creation, and stood by the vast window besides Melissa. He noticed that there was a single tear running down her cheek, glistening in the disfiguring light from the skies above. Quite frankly, he didn't know whether or not to comfort her, or even how he could possibly help in any way.

"_Alert! Sixty seconds remaining until catastrophic crystallic energy overload!" _A harsh computer-generated voice sounded over the tower's loudspeaker system, and Rin felt the ground slowly start to vibrate. The skies began to grow more and more violent, lightning streaking across the sky in a terrifying fashion, it's long slender fingers of light arcing out in every direction, the deafening roar of thunder seemed to shake the entire building.

In Alexandria, those who were still alive watched in a mixture of amazement and terror as the maelstrom above them grew stronger and stronger. A vicious wind whipped up, the ground heaved and trembled, and for the first time in the history of creation, a sound was heard, a sound so chilling and terrifying that everyone alive knew what it was the instant they heard it.

The universe screamed.

It was a horrific wail of agony and sadness, the combined voices of countless billions of souls, all screaming in terror and unbridled pain, in bitterness and in anger. Thousands of emotions, billions of voices, all whirling together to form the most horrifying cry of suffering anyone had ever heard.

Neil and the others clasped their hands over their ears in agony, the sound ranking higher than someone putting a pneumatic drill next to your face and turning it on. Windows shattered, buildings fell to pieces, the world itself almost seemed to tear at the seams as the final seconds of existence started to draw to a close. Calum shouted something, but it was lost over the noise of apocalyptic doom.

To describe this event would warp the untrained mind. To first comprehend what was happening, you would have to first comprehend how mind-paralysingly big the universe is. Countless billions of worlds, endless amounts of space and vacuum, stretching into infinity. Now, imagine this infinite mass coming together, folding in on one point in the centre of the universe. The actual process of this took less than a second, uncountable amounts of mass crushing together into a microscopic point a nothingth wide and a nothingth long. Rin, Melissa, Neil, Calum, Sal, Mikoto, Garnet, Zidane, and all of others would have experienced an incredible crushing sensation for a millionth of a second, before simply ceasing to exist.

This event was so destructive, it had repercussions across the parallel universes nearby, but none of these were noticeable to human-kind, or Gaians alike. The only people who did feel anything were the Spiritseers, and even they barely picked up on it, just feeling an unexplainable sense of loss and sadness for less than a few seconds.

All that remained was oblivion, absolutely nothing...

* * *


	10. Chapter Nine: Intervention

Disclaimer: Just check out the previous chapters, okay? They explain everything you need to know.

A/N: Nothing much to say again. Just one thing though, having nine-hour shifts at work really gives me time to think about this story. They're handy. (grins)

* * *

_**Chapter 9: Intervention

* * *

**_

I heard screams, distant cries of terror and pain from an unknown place. What was happening? Was I dead?

Slowly, light began to filter in on my dark world, and I saw a dark grey wall, illuminated by a soft glow. Something shook me by my shoulder, not too roughly though. I turned my head to see a black and grey-ish blurred blob, a silhouette in the gentle halo of light that radiated from a place I could not see.

"Are you alright, can you move?" I heard a vaguely familiar voice ask.

"Uh..." My vocal chords responded, my head thumping with the oncoming of one killer of a headache. My vision started to clear a little, and the blob before me slowly transformed magically into the familiar figure of Joachim, looking a little fraught with worry. Behind him was one of the most gobsmackingly beautiful sights I had ever seen.

There was a giant pillar of benevolent light lancing into the heavens, surrounded by, from what I could tell, a huge circular building that curved upwards into what seemed like a massive funnel, from which this wondrous divine light emerged from. The sky far above us was a cold pale blue in a combination of the morning light and the glow that came from the very centre of the building. What really got me though were what were in the sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of pale ethereal figures floated effortlessly on the gentle breeze, the spirits of those whose mortal shells could no longer hold them. They were barely visible against the divine light, but they were definitely there.

"Where did that infernal machine throw us?" I muttered, clutching my head as the ache grew more and more prominent, each pump of blood from my heart causing my brain to bulge painfully against the inside of my skull.

"I don't think we've moved." Joachim explained thoughtfully. "We're in the exact same spot we were when we left."

"So that would mean...that this is Zion?" I replied, looking around in awe. It was everything Rin had said it would be, the towering crystallic buildings shimmered in the light, refracting it and firing it out in every direction in some sort of spectral light display, dazzling colours struck everywhere.

"Must be, what else could it be?" Even Joachim felt mildly impressed by the city of the dead, the aura the place gave off seemed to calm the very depths of his soul.

"_So this is the place where we came about then?" _Firenze thought. _"Pretty nice."_ He added nonchalantly.

Joachim suddenly began to develop a particularly daunting feeling. He'd never met his parents before, how would he react seeing them for the first time? What was even more daunting was that in this time period, he hadn't even been conceived yet, and both Eve and himself would have to have a part in bringing our parents together safely, lest they completely cease to exist.

I watched Joachim's face carefully, his face creased with deep thought and worry.

"What's bothering you? Ease up a little bit." I climbed to my feet and patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. Carefully, I reached into my pocket and took a look at the device that Rin had given me. It was small and silver, with light electric blue writing on a tiny screen. It was about the size of my hand altogether, the screen taking up most of the surface. The tiny writing currently told me what the time was where I stood, what the date was, what phase the moon (or moons, in Gaia's case) was going through, what the temperature was, humidity, air pressure, altitude, location, and hundreds of other bits of information. I tapped the screen curiously, and a little alarm bell came up, tinkling in a tiny high-pitched fashion. The screen cleared, and a small extract appeared, which I read carefully.

_Current Date: 3rd September 2005_

_Event Date: 4th September 2005_

_This is the day that Zidane Tribal proposed to Queen Garnet of Alexandria. It is also the day of the first registered contact between Spiritseer and Gaian leaders._

_Rin Ashford (2025)_

I blinked a few times, re-reading it several times over before handing it to Joachim so he could have a look.

"We're further back than I thought." He muttered, handing it back. "I figured he'd put us back to a week before everything went wrong."

"Well there must be something important about to happen then. Think back, did anything happen during this time?" Joachim thought for a few seconds, before clicking his fingers in realisation.

"There was an incident at the wedding ceremony, some sort of terrorist attack. My foster parents never told me the details, but apparently there were sounds of explosions and strange bangs coming from the castle grounds. Those must have been gunshots."

"So that must mean this is when it all started, when the war began!" I exclaimed, finally beginning to understand. "We've got to get to Alexandria for the wedding!" He nodded in agreement, before we set off down the bustling street.

While we were making our way through the city, I began to notice the strange looks that some of the spirits were giving us. I admit, we must have looked a little strange, a girl with a slightly torn thin black blouse on and a long black dress, along with a shirtless guy wearing a black longcoat, but some of the looks we were getting looked almost...suspicious. Then I realised that we were alive, while the others were dead. In fact, we must have been the first living people here for a heck of a long time, since this was, after all, the city of the dead.

I reached beneath the blouse and revealed the pendant my mother had given me, and some of the spirits around us seemed to relax slightly. Joachim was still getting funny looks, but as long as I made sure he stuck with me, it wouldn't be too suspicious.

It began to dawn on me just how big Zion was when we had been walking for little over an hour, and I still couldn't see the edge of the city. All around us were endless stretches of metropolis, and at that moment I would have given anything to be dead like the spirits around us. After much experimentation with my spiritual form, I'd discovered that flying was a lot easier than walking, plus much faster. There was no traffic around in the streets, which I found slightly odd for a city of it's size, until I remembered that no-one actually needed transportation. It wasn't exactly designed well for the living.

After another hour of walking, I had grown quite tired. My legs were beginning to feel as though they had been filled with lead, each step starting to become a chore. Finally, we came across something that seemed like some sort of transport terminal, a sign above it spelling out the words "Teleport Centre".

"Well, that could be useful." Joachim commented, leading me inside. Within the building, it was practically abandoned, barely any spirits were hanging around. However, these ones were standing around instead of floating, which lead me to believe that they were freshly deceased. They looked confused about the whole experience, being advised by some kind of officials on what to do. Along the far end of the chamber lay several circular pods, shaped much like the Chronos, only without the metal legs around them.

"Can I help you?" A blonde-haired spirit floated over, her partially transparent body was clothed in a simple blue top with a single thin white line across the upper chest area. She also wore a pair of navy blue trousers, and looked much like a receptionist.

"Erm, we'd like to get out of Zion please." I replied sheepishly. She nodded in a polite and understanding manner.

"Certainly, there's the North, South, East and West gates to choose from." I tried to remember the location of Zion in relation to Alexandria, but Joachim answered before I did.

"South Gate please." She nodded once again, and indicated towards one of the glass spheres.

"Okay, just step inside here please." Tenderly, I stepped inside, looking at the light filtering gently in through the windows that lined every other wall in the massive room. Before I knew it, a handsome young fellow was walking up to us with a smile on his face and opening the door again. I blinked a few times, looking at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked, and he looked a little confused.

"Wrong? What makes you think that?" Suddenly, his face snapped. "Oh, this must have been your first teleportation. You didn't notice anything?"

"Notice what? I just walked in, and now you're getting me out."

"You're at the South Gate, you've just teleported from Light Central." I turned around to see Joachim climbing out of his glass ball, a look of sheer confusion across his face.

"Does someone mind telling me what just happened?" He asked, and the man in front of us sighed patiently.

"Look, you just got into the teleporter didn't you?" I nodded.

"But nothing happened." He was still incredibly patient.

"Of course you didn't notice anything. If we teleport the living, some of the energy used in process tends to have a strange effect on the bio-electric flow around the body. In other words, it screws with your nervous system." He felt like he was running full pelt down the home stretch now. "A consequence of the process is mild amnesia, so you won't have remembered anything happening."

"So...we've teleported all the way over here?" I was starting to get a grasp on what had just happened.

"Yes." The young man felt as though he'd won some sort of small victory in the fight against stupidity. "Altogether, you travelled over a hundred kilometres in a little over a second. If that doesn't mess you up, nothing will."

"Ah trust me, we've been through worse." Joachim replied in a cryptic manner, smiling slightly.

---

"Phew, it sure is cold out here." I muttered as I tramped after Joachim over a wide open field of bright green crisp grass that crunched softly under our feet as we moved onwards. The sun had long since set, leaving us in practically total darkness, except for the two glowing moons that hung delicately in the night sky. Eventually, we had to come to a stop, my legs plainly refusing to carry me any further. Joachim, on the other hand, looked barely out of breath.

"And you were supposed to be the Gemini's one true saviour?" He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Hey, cut that out Joey." He blinked in pure shock.

"What did you just call me?" I laughed a little.

"I think it's cute." He crossed his arms and laid down on the grass, looking up at the night sky.

"Doesn't exactly go with my image though, does it?"

"What image would that be? A cool, calm, and collected mercenary who prevails against all odds?"

"Pretty much."

"Well you missed it by a long shot." I sat down next to him, the ground was actually quite comfortable here, the soil was soft and well-turned. I guess it helped being so close to the Light Crystal, everything I had seen as I progressed away from Zion had been in almost perfect health. I lay down on my back, looking up at the dazzling array of stars in the sky, all twinkling away without a care in the world beneath them. It was all quite peaceful around here. If only it could stay like that.

We lay there, silent in wonder, staring at the stars above. Slowly, I felt Joachim move.

"Eve?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how you can read people's memories, like when we were back in that cryogenics room?"

"Uh-huh. What's the problem?"

"Could you...show other people those memories?" I sat up, looking at him straight in the eye. I could almost anticipate which memory he wanted to see.

"I don't know. I suppose I could give it a try." I took his hand in mine, slowly slipping off the thin black glove that adorned it, revealing his pale white skin beneath it, which almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. I closed my eyes and concentrated, searching my mind for a certain scene. It was almost like looking into a mirror and willing a moving picture to appear instead of your face. My mind started to go into some sort of hypnotised trance, like I was staring beyond the very boundaries of reality and into the netherworld of beyond. I felt something begin to surface, and I concentrated on it, willing it to show itself to us.

_We were in some sort of bedroom, the light peach wallpaper reflected the dying sun outside so the entire room seemed to glow. The long rectangular window at the far end of the room lead out onto an empty and desolate street, some bodies still lay there, small streams of crimson oozed slowly out of them. Next to the window was a desk, strewn with all sorts of artistic materials and bits of paper, arranged much like it's owners mind, in chaotic fashion. _

_Slowly moving across the room, my sight picked up on the bed, where a bloodied young woman lay, fighting for breath, a long silver blade still jammed in her shoulder, her life fluids staining the bedclothes beneath her. Her eyes were flickering, fighting to stay open against the overwhelming cold that threatened to take over her body at any moment. Her curled brown hair was a complete mess, blood matting it to the side of her head. I moved down to the side of the bed and leant over, placing my hand around the exposed hilt of the rapier firmly stuck in her flesh. Gently, trying not to cause too much harm, I pulled it out, trying to ignore the horrible slurping sound that followed it, as air rushed into the gaping wound. She groaned in pain, arching her back to allow the blade to move out easier. Finally, I held the full length of the sword in my hand, the blade drenched in deep red blood. After placing it on the floor, I moved back over to her, placing my hands over the wound that she suffered from, drawing the sides together, stopping some of the more intense bleeding. Of course, I left a little of the wound, just enough so the intense pain would stop her from jumping up and trying to knock my face off. It would also stop her from struggling during the next phase of the plan._

"_Who...are you?" Her voice sounded a little strangled and faint, probably from the duress she was under._

"_My full name is Styx Katar, but it's not like you needed to know that." I leant forwards, pressing my lips against her's, but she turned her head away sharply._

"_Get away from me..." I slowly removed the armoured gloves I wore, and revealed the slender pale fingers beneath, flexing them a little in discomfort. I began to brush one finger up and down her stomach, and once again she tried to move away, only to cry out in pain. Since there was still a massive hole through her chest cavity, she found it difficult to move without causing an intense amount of agony, but she still seemed determined._

"_Now stop that, you'll only end up hurting yourself." I gently grabbed her shoulders and held her down, staring directly into her confused and angry eyes._

"_Why are you doing this?" She asked bitterly. That one caught me out, I'd never even considered why I did these things. All I knew was that I liked it, therefore it was a good enough reason. "Didn't anyone ever teach you that no means no?"_

"_Come to think of it, no."_

"_What about your mother, what would she say?" I liked it, she was desperately vying for time, probably trying to wait until that genomic idiot outside decided to wake up, or perhaps until she was strong enough to fight back. It was pretty useless though, the spell I had knocked him out with was strong enough to keep him down for at least several hours, and she wasn't going anywhere without a large amount of healing work._

"_My mother?" I laughed, shaking my head. "My mother abandoned me while I was still in her godforsaken womb. My father left her to die, but he lived to regret his decision. Why, if it wasn't for the master, I wouldn't be here now, would I?"_

"_What a pity that would have been." She replied sarcastically._

"_He showed me the way, showed me how to get my revenge on the ones who had spurned me. I owe him my life."_

"_So this is how you live that life he gave you? Killing innocent people and desecrating innocent women?"_

"_In a nutshell, yes. It's not like there's anything better to do. I follow his orders, gain his trust. He's like the father I never had. I even kept his name, just to keep things simple, and to eliminate any evidence that the piece of scum that gave me the gift of life so foolishly."_

"_Hmph, what a father figure he must have been. A psychotic old fool with a penchant for wiping out civilisations." I felt like hitting her for that remark. No-one dared to insult my master and live with the same amount of limbs afterwards. I grinned darkly though, I was about to take something far more precious than any of her limbs. "You sicken me." She finished bitterly._

"_That's strange. The others said the exact same thing...right before they died screaming in agony."_

"_So why don't you kill me then? Go on, I'm practically defenceless." Silly girl, trying to lead me astray. It wouldn't work though, my mind was already salivating at the prospect of another victim, and I wasn't one to deny my feelings. I leant forwards and kissed her again, this time she didn't move. However, when I pulled back a few seconds later, I realised why._

"_Silly little girl." I pointed at the small gemstone stuck in the wrist of my armour, a deep sensuous purple in colour. "This little one shuts your little wraith friend up. It's a spirit stone, and it keeps mine firmly where it belongs; inside my body." She looked both shocked and horrified, her final defence plan gone down the drain. She once again resorted to squirming, and I sighed, placing my fingers on the side of her neck and pinching. She cried out, stopping all movement. "I didn't want to have to resort to that, but you left me with no choice." She looked up at me, tears in her eyes._

"_You bastard." She muttered angrily._

"_Good observation there, I am indeed a fatherless child." I leaned forwards, placing myself over her, before drawing her face up to mine and letting myself go..._

I didn't want to go any further. I knew what happened next, and I'm sure Joachim could have guessed. In fact, from the way he began bouncing around, cursing like a madman, it's quite possible he was angry about it too.

"I'm going to kill that maggot!" He shouted angrily. "I won't let him do that to her!" I listened with half-interest. I was far too preoccupied with what I had just witnessed. Styx had described his parents, with a horrifying resemblance to my own. My mother had died before I had even had the chance to be born, my father had killed himself out of sheer hatred of what he just done to her. Just another reason to learn from Styx's mistakes in life.

---

I stirred under the gentle heat from the sun, blinking back into conciousness slowly, stifling a yawn. The night had passed without incident, and I found myself snuggled up under Joachim's left arm, trying to escape from the bitter cold of the night. The sun slowly rose, blazing into life on the horizon, casting a wonderfully warm light across the world. My neck was a little stiff, mostly from the lack of a decent pillow to rest my head on, but apart from that, I was fine. I turned to look at Joachim, who was lying awake, gazing blankly into the lightening sky.

"I take it you slept well." He whispered, looking down at me. I smiled a little.

"Yeah. Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Not really. I'm not a big sleeper...when I sleep, I remember things I'd rather not." I looked at him quizzically, but he left it at that, and showed no interest in continuing further into the subject. I wasn't one to pry, so I left it well alone.

"We'd better get a move on, unless we want to miss the wedding." I explained, and he nodded in agreement, rising to his feet quickly. I pouted, it had been quite comfortable lying close to him, and I reluctantly got up after him, before we set out towards Alexandria.

---

The city was slightly different than when I had last saw it. In our time period, life had been pretty subdued in Alexandria, people just went from place to place, getting on with life. There was no atmosphere there, no sense of purpose.

Today, however, it wasn't even that. The entire place was practically deserted, a few people still wandering around aimlessly. It reminded me of a ghost town, which was very eerie.

"What's going on?" I thought out loud.

"Hmm, Garnet must be breaking the news to the general public. My foster parents said that most of the city's population was in the castle grounds at the time, listening to the announcement with great joy. Heck, it wasn't like they hadn't expected it though, ever since that Zidane guy showed up a few days earlier." He looked puzzled for a second, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. "They also said there was some sort of mugging just outside the main gates to the grounds." He smiled. "Bloody kids, they said." We carried on up the main street, nothing but the sound of the cobbles clicking beneath our feet to greet us.

Suddenly, I heard a gigantic roar up ahead, and wondered what monster could possibly make such a sound. Then I realised that it was not a single creature, but rather a mass of people cheering in celebration. We hurried on, but I stopped just before the main gates, looking in sheer awe at the sight that greeted me.

The castle was as beautiful as ever, it's towering spires and massive shining crystal were a masterpiece of architecture, but it wasn't that I had my eyes on.

Instead, I was concentrating on the two people standing by the gate, looking out over the moat, one listening to the other explaining something.

"I don't believe it..." I muttered. One of the two teenagers was a young light-haired individual, wearing a long deep blue cloak, it's depths were a murky shade of twilight blue, while the lighter areas were a slightly brighter navy blue instead. It seemed to shimmer in the sunlight as he seemed to be explaining something complicated to the girl next to him, who was listening intently to his words.

She was slightly shorter than him, curled brown hair fell down over the shoulders of a deep purple top. She also wore a short-ish black skirt, topped off by a little black cap perched atop her head. Suddenly she came out with something that made both of them laugh, and they turned to look at something happening across the lake.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I felt something brush past me. I turned to look, but I couldn't see anything around me. The air suddenly grew colder, and I started to feel a little scared. Something was wrong.

"What's he doing?" Joachim asked, and I looked back at the scene before us. The young man had fallen to the floor, clutching his head in agony, while the confused-looking girl bent down beside him, asking him something. I heard something move behind me again, but this time it was a pair of Alexandrian guards wandering down the main street, chatting idly. I grabbed Joachim by the hand and pulled him towards me, leaning back against the stone wall of a shop beside us, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

I jumped in shock as the young man removed a small dagger from his belt and proceeded to ram it into the girl's chest, prompting a strangled cry of both terror and pain. The two guards behind us almost shot out of their skins, and ran towards the scene of violence, pushing past us as went. Again and again he stabbed her, until she fell to the floor, twitching sickeningly, blood drenching her clothes.

Joachim was beside himself in anger and shock. He went to move towards them, but I tightened my grip on his hand, and pulled him against me, pressing my lips against his in an attempt to stop him from shouting out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guards give the boy a sharp blow around the side of the head with the hilt of her sword, knocking him out instantly, before turning to the girl and checking her for any signs of life. After a quick check, she turned to her comrade, giving her rapid orders and pointing towards the castle.

Almost as quick as it had happened, it was over. Another three guards had turned up, one of them helping to carry the girl away, while the other three carefully lifted the boy's unconscious body away towards the little wooden boat across the twinkling waters of the moat. Slowly, I finished our embrace, gazing at him directly in his icy blue eyes.

"Calm down, she'll be alright."

"Why did he stab her? She was completely defenceless!" He hissed angrily, but a placed a finger on his lips.

"He was possessed, he couldn't have done anything to stop that from happening...and neither could we."

"But we could have gone over and stopped them!"

"No. Think about this. If we'd have stopped him, what repercussions would that have? She wouldn't have got injured, which means they wouldn't have had to go to Zion, and some important bonding events would not have happened."

"How do you know that?" I looked down at the ground in thought.

"My mother's memories are still fresh. There's something he said to her during the journey to Zion that stuck, I don't want to mess with that."

"So you'd be perfectly happy to watch my mother die then?"

"Look, if she was dead, you wouldn't be standing here right now, and neither would I." I shook my head. "We have to be careful what we change, we can't just run in willy-nilly and start messing around with everything. This is the only chance we'll get to sort this out. If we screw up, then the whole universe is doomed." He seemed to struggle internally, but finally gave up and nodded solemnly.

"Alright. Just...tell me what to do when the time comes." He leaned in closer. "And warn me next time you plan on doing that." I grinned.

"It was supposed to be a pleasant surprise. I could easily never do it again if you like."

"No, I liked it too much for you to stop now." He said those words with a grin, but I could sense something different inside him. It almost seemed like...fear...

* * *


	11. Chapter Ten: Entwined

Disclaimer: Check out the previous chapters, and if you have any queries, e-mail me at the address provided in my profile. Stealing is punishable by a fate worse than death.

A/N: Once again, the writer's block struck. Fortunately, it wasn't for three years like last time, so here's the new chapter!

* * *

_**Chapter 10: Entwined

* * *

**_

The small hotel was completely silent, the soft moonlight peeping in through the open window, the curtains billowing gently in the breeze. I turned over on my bed, my mind clouded with troubling thoughts. Mostly, I was too scared to go back to sleep, my slumber had been haunted by memories of my horrifying ordeal a few nights ago in my personal timeline. In the pale glow of the moons, I could see Joachim's outline on the other bed in the room, the one closer to the door. I watched curiously as he stirred a little, moaning in a mixture of horror and fear in his sleep. What was scaring him so much?

My curiosity getting the better of me, and closed my eyes and relaxed, slowly feeling the familiar floating sensation of displacement, as my soul slowly rose out of my body. When I opened my eyes, I found myself hovering quite close to the ceiling, gazing down at my own body, which was sleeping several feet below me, it's chest rising and falling rhythmically. Carefully, I willed myself across the darkened room, until I was floating mere inches above Joachim's quietly writhing form, a feeling of concern across my face. I'd never seen him so disturbed before, his face slightly contorted in deep emotional pain.

Slowly, I moved my hand down through the empty space, and laid it on his cheek, trying to be as comforting as I could. The instant my hand touched his face, I saw a scene flash before my eyes.

_The pain was unimaginable, the numerous wounds on my body leaked my precious life fluids all over the charred metal surface I was lying on. However, I wasn't going to give up. I gritted my teeth together and struggled on, dragging my body across the floor slowly, each movement adding more and more agony on top of what I was feeling already. The sky was ablaze with the dying sunlight of the day, mixed with the intense heat of flames coming from the wreckage of the airship we had been riding on, the one that had crashed violently into a mountain range just outside Lindblum. I could already hear the faint sounds of a recovery crew heading up from the grand city, shouting out for any survivors._

_A quiet voice to my left made me freeze on the spot._

"_Ah..." I looked at where it had come from, and saw the sight I had been dreading. There were a few corpses littered around, some completely mangled in the torn and twisted mass of metal and wood that was once an airship. Near the edge of the wreckage lay a young red-headed girl, a large shard of metal stuck straight through her stomach, pinning her to the floor. Her hazel eyes were streaked with tears, flickering as she struggled with the incredible task of staying awake. I crawled over to her as quickly as I could, completely ignoring the screaming protest of my wrecked limbs. As I reached her, I surveyed the situation, realising that it was very grim indeed. The piece of shrapnel had gone straight through most of the vital organs in her lower body, mangling whatever hadn't been smashed to a pulp. How she was even alive now was a miracle in itself. Her ribs were heavily cracked and bruised, some completely shattered, shards of bone tearing their way into her failing lungs, blood literally bubbling out of her chest as air forced its way out of her body._

"_No, this can't be happening..." I whispered in horrified shock. She looked at me, her body shaking as it began to enter it's final moments, tears flowing freely down her face, mingling with the deep red blood that stained it._

"_I... l...lo..."She tried to say something, but it was cut short as her entire body fell limp, her eyes closing in one last twitch of pain before she died. A few moments passed, and I didn't know what to do, my eyes clouding from a combination of pain and tears. At that moment, everything that had just happened, the agony in my body, the emotional heartache, everything got on top of me, and I fell defeated on top of her motionless body, wishing that I would just get on with it and die..._

I flew backwards in shock as he shot up in bed, his eyes wide open with terror, his breathing harsh and strangled. As her panted, he said something quietly that I didn't quite pick up on. It sounded something like "Hannah.", but I couldn't be sure, since half my head was currently embedded in the wall, looking at the underside of the coffee table next door. I pulled myself back into our room, and sat on the floor, watching Joachim as he looked towards my body, panting heavily, a worried expression on his face. Slowly, he laid back down, but his eyes did not close for the rest of the night.

---

The morning air was cool and refreshing on my skin as I stood by the window, watching the world go by, oblivious to what was about to happen to it. From where I stood I could just see over the high stone walls that surrounded the castle grounds, at the little ceremonial area being set up in a quiet area overshadowed by blossom trees in the far distance, their pure pinkish-white feathery blossoms slowly floating down from the trees elegantly.

"So what's the plan?" I heard Joachim ask from across the room, sat on his bed, pulling on his thick heavy boots. I looked down at the small device in my hand, it's little blue screen telling me everything I needed to know.

"We need to go to some sort of palace on the continent north of here. My parents went back to Earth at some point in the near future, and they traversed through a portal in that palace."

"Will there be enemies?" I nodded reluctantly.

"A Titan, a battalion of Imaginary Numbers, and several members of the Children Of Erebus." This struck a chord with the sliver-haired mercenary on the bed.

"Styx will be there?" I saw his fist clench a little, almost in anticipation.

"Yeah, along with the rest of his so-called family."

"Let's get going then, if there's no time to lose." I looked out of the window. I thought back to what happened there, and I realised that nothing could be changed for the better at this point. Everything that happened at that ceremony had an important impact on future events, so it would be important that nothing went wrong. Even if we marched on in and killed Lazarus, it would mean that our parents would never have been brought together through the events that followed, thus negating our own existence in the process. My head began to pound again. Just thinking about all the different possible events that could happen gave me one hell of a headache.

---

I stood on the airship, looking down at the twinkling waters far below in wonder. This was the first time I had ever flown while not in my spiritual form, and it was quite unnerving to look down on the world from a rickety wooden airship that clanked through the sky in a loud discomforting way. It was almost as if it was going to drop out of the sky at any second, and fall blazing towards the ocean far beneath in a blazing inferno.

In the far distance beyond the bow of the ship, I could see the faint outline of land, a desolate-looking desert and scrub landscape covered with towering mountains and deep twisting ravines. I turned to see Joachim stood a little further down the rail, looking grimly down at his feet. I scooted over a bit, until I was practically next to him. Something had been bothering me about what I had seen last night, so I decided to innocently raise the topic of conversation.

"Who's this Hannah I hear about?" I blinked as innocently as I could at him, as he turned to me, his ice-blue eyes trained firmly on mine, his face one of shock.

"How did you..."

"You were saying her name in your sleep last night." I figured it might not be a good idea to tell him I'd been snooping around in his memories, even if it had just been out of curiosity. He looked back down at his feet solemnly, before gazing sorrowfully at the light-blue skies that surrounded us.

"She was an old friend, I met her while I was in Treno on business. I caught her pickpocketing me just by the auction house. Very stupidly, she decided to follow me around, even though I was being hunted by about five other assassins that weren't too happy that I'd stolen their contract."

"I can imagine how that turned out." I chipped in.

"Things got a little hectic when they'd decided it was a good idea to start aiming for her, thinking we had some sort of attachment. We barely made it out of that alive, and she decided that I had a pretty exciting life, so she hung around with me a lot more."

"That's practically suicide in itself."

"At first, I didn't like her that much. She was very childish, plus she got in the way a lot, but slowly something began to change. Over the years I knew her, I guess I grew more and more attached to having her around. One thing led to another, and soon afterwards we were so attached that we decided to do something about it." He sighed.

"I take it you loved her?"

"She was the world to me, perhaps even more."

"Then what happened?"

"...We were on one of the new airships that Lindblum had churned out recently, using a new type of steam engine that was supposed to be much more stable than it's previous incarnations. However, it's engines failed just after leaving Lindblum, and it crashed down near Dragon's Gate, killing all but a few of those onboard." We both fell silent for a while. "After she died, I can't remember too much. It felt as though someone had just ripped my ribcage open and left my organs bared to the world. I just drifted from one place to the next, I can barely remember what went on. Finally, I went to Alexandria, stopping by the house I grew up in, just to think things through. The next thing I know, you turn up on my doorstep." Once again we fell silent.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." He shook his head.

"It's alright, you weren't to know." I moved closer and hugged him, trying to comfort him a little as we watched the land on the horizon slowly get closer and closer.

---

"So, got any ideas?" I whispered to him as we watched the entrance to the hidden palace carefully. Once we'd touched down near Condie Petie, we'd trekked eastward towards the mountain range in the far distance. After a long hard journey, we reached what seemed to be a large docking bay in a mountainside. However, the whole place was crawling with strange enemies. Joachim had explained to me that these were the Imaginary Numbers I had heard about, and they looked almost as terrifying as the Gemini, wearing the same kind of armour, only without the helmets, revealing horrifying dead eyes and a blank expression. They were humanoid, but they didn't seem even remotely human, just soulless shells created to follow orders.

"_I say we charge on in...and start killing everybody." _Firenze commented.

"Yeah, well you would say that, wouldn't you?" Joachim replied, surveying the situation before him. "There's at least seven guards that I can see, there may be more that I can't" He turned to me. "Have you got anything to arm yourself with?" He asked.

"Well, they gave me all these combat skills, it'd be a shame if I didn't bother using them." I looked down at my hands, flexing them slightly. My sub-concious was already picking out what techniques I could use on each guard. "So are we running in?"

"May as well, there's not really many tactical opportunities out here. They have the high ground, plenty of cover, outnumber us by quite a bit, and have enough ammunition to sink a navy." I rolled my eyes.

"And this is supposed to make me feel a little more confident?" He smiled.

"Heck no, I'm just as scared as you are."

"_Heh, you two are complete and utter wimps." _Firenze noted.

"Ready?" He asked, and I nodded, my heart pumping faster than I could ever imagine. With that said, we jumped over the sandy rocks we had been hiding behind, and ran at full-pelt towards the unsuspecting clones. I reached the first one and grabbed him around the neck, barely aware of what I was doing. Swinging him around, I held him between myself and another clone as some sort of impromptu shield. The tactic paid off, as the other clone pointed the lethal-looking arm blade towards me, firing off a few shots in my direction, only to hit his own comrade. I pushed the dying clone forwards, grabbing the blade on his arm as he fell, pulling it off and examining it. Deep in my mind, long forgotten knowledge surfaced, and I placed it onto my own arm, sliding my fingers into the grip and pointing straight towards the other clone, squeezing off a few shots into him. My arm shuddered under the recoil, and I watched as the bullets blew straight into the clone's body, causing him to jerk violently and drop to the floor, blood flowing freely onto the warm sands beneath him.

I turned around to see Joachim drop a clone with relative ease, a single shot straight through the head. He dived to the left to avoid a flurry of bullets, his pistols exacting vengeance on those who dared to fight back. I felt movement behind me and swung the blade on my arm to my left, feeling a sick squelch as it embedded itself in the chest of a clone that had been moving up behind me. Just to make sure he was dead, I pulled the trigger while the blade was still stuck inside him, feeling him shudder and drop to the floor silently.

As yet another souless enemy charged forwards, I raised my free hand towards it, letting my mind clear of all other thoughts and trying to concentrate on casting a spell upon the crazed man. Suddenly, I felt my hands warm, and a swirling blast of fire erupted from them, hitting the clone square in the chest. I winced away from the foul odour of burning flesh, and turned to see what was going on elsewhere.

I was shocked to see that Joachim had removed his gloves, and had grabbed the last Imaginary Number by the face. The clone struggled and jerked violently, before dropping to the floor, completely lifeless.

"I thought those things had no souls?" I shouted to him, walking over and examining the dead clone.

"_They don't, but I can still take them down."_

"How's that supposed to work then?"

"_Simple. Exposing them to spiritual energy overloads their internal functions. By giving them what they don't have, the sheer shock of it overwhelms and destroys them."_ I could almost imagine Firenze rubbing his hands together with glee. I looked down again at the clone, his face completely and utterly expressionless, his deep purple eyes staring blankly at some point beyond our vision. Creatures without a soul, they had deserved to die, even though my heart strained at causing so much unnecessary mortality.

Carefully, we moved on, leaving the dead in the blazing sunlight. More and more skirmishes followed, each one was shortly ended, each more violent and destructive as the one before. Eventually, after fighting our way into the very depths of the luxurious palace, we came across a solid-looking metal door. Joachim placed his ear against it, listening carefully, but shook his head in disappointment.

"There's someone on the other side, but I can't make out what they're saying."

"Leave that to me." I replied, calmly closing my eyes and allowing myself free of my own mortal bounds, free of the flesh and blood I had been encased within. After gently floating out of my body, I placed my faintly transparent hands on the cold metal of the imposing door. Slowly, I felt my body move through the surface, the particles of my soul mingling with the very elements of the door, a faint sense of unity flowing through my spiritual self as I emerged from the other side, unscathed.

I took a look at the room I found myself in. It was pretty well decorated, the floor was a deeply carved marble, bright white with deep flowing veins of maroon running across them, like blood vessels streaking across pale skin. It seemed to give the ground a strange organic feel, almost as if it was alive, and it resented me standing on it. The walls were decorated with a deep maroon, flickering lanterns adorned the walls, casting dark and intimidating shadows across the room. At the far end, stood up against the wall, was a large gate-like structure. It was made out a light shiny metal, long winding and elegant black patterns were carved into it's surface, trailing down it's sides like some sort of morbid ivy.

In front of this gate stood a group of five armoured people, chatting amongst themselves. I quickly floated down into the ground, so only the very top part of my head was visible, and I hid the only visible part of me just behind the eerie gate, listening intently to the conversation going on before me.

"So this is the Seer Gate?" One of the females in the group muttered in a mild sense of awe. Her silver hair was kept short, barely reaching past her ears, her body flickered and twitched. I noticed that her outline was faint too, indicating that she had passed away, and was now just a spirit. With a horrible shock, I realised that I recognised two of the people in the room, and I had to stop myself from gasping with my hand.

"Yes, this is what the master told us to seek." Styx replied, flicking a rogue strand of hair out of his cold eyes, staring directly at the gate before them.

"When's the cannon fodder showing up then?" A large man, carrying an equally large cannon of some sort snorted. "I wanna tear them limb from limb!"

"Calm yourself brother, don't get too worked up just yet." Cocytus patted him on the shoulder, and he shook in frustration.

"Lethe? Do you have any idea how to work this device?" Another member of the group, a young man I had not seen before, turned to the faint outline of a woman just behind him, his ornate arm-blade gleamed dully in the flickering flame of the lamp-light.

"Hmm, it shouldn't be too difficult." I shrunk back a little, so I was almost completely embedded in the wall as well as the floor. I delved beneath the room, my world plunging into a deep dank darkness as I fell into the earth beneath the palace, floating forwards through the depths until I was safe enough to pop back upwards, pulling my spiritual form back into my warm comfortable body.

"So, what's going on?" Joachim asked.

"There's five of them, Styx and Cocytus are there too." I dug my hand into a pocket, pulling out the informational device Rin had given us, tapping a few buttons until I found what I wanted.

_The Children Of Erebus_

_These five siblings form a crack tactical team, and were found to be highly active during the Trans-War. They are lead by the oldest member of the group, Styx. The others are as follows: Cocytus, Acheron, Lethe, and Phelgethon. Approach with extreme caution._

"So what would a crack squad be doing all the way out in the middle of the desert?" Joachim looked thoughtfully at the solid door before us.

"Well, they were looking at some sort of big metal gate device against the wall. I wonder what that is?" I muttered partly to myself, partly to the confused-looking mercenary beside me.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good if they get their hands on it. I reckon we pay them a little visit."

"Two against five? Isn't that a little ambitious?" I suddenly felt a pang of worry. Joachim shook his head.

"We can't just sit out here all day, we've got to do something about them." I slowly nodded, very reluctant to go any further.

"I suppose so. Let's just be careful." He nodded and opened the door, handguns pointed squarely ahead of him. I followed closely, my hands raised with spells at the ready.

The room was empty.

"What the hell?" He muttered in confusion, before I heard a loud slam behind us. I turned to see Lethe standing by the heavy metal door, which was now closed, a small silver key in her hand.

"You didn't really think we were that stupid, did you?" Acheron walked out from the shadows in the corner. Slowly but surely, the others came out of hiding, each carrying weapons at the ready. My head screamed at me to run away, but where to? The only escape route had just been sealed off, we were trapped like rats.

"Hmm, I don't think these are the ones the master spoke of." Styx spoke to the others, while staring directly at me. "I'm sure he said there were five of them."

"The others must be around somewhere. We'll sort them out later." Phelgethon snarled, toying with the huge weapon in his hands. I really didn't want to get in the way of that thing when it went off.

"_Are you two going to stand there, or am I going to have do everything myself?"_ Firenze muttered, and I dove forwards as the entire chamber erupted into rapid movement.

In a mere instant, Joachim had undergone his terrifying transformation into Firenze, his massive black wings neatly folded up against his back due to lack of space to spread them. His malevolent presence seemed to fill the whole room, partly scaring the elite squad attacking us. This must have been the first time they had ever seen a part-wraith, and I could vouch for the fact that it was never a pleasant experience. I turned over and threw a thunder spell at Acheron, who quickly dodged the crackling arcs of lightning I had shot at him, and fired wildly at Firenze, who was slashing viciously at Styx with huge black claws. Each blow looked like it could have taken down a tree, yet Styx managed to nimbly avoid these attacks, his silver blade flashing in the dim light as he struck back.

Firenze let loose a deafening roar that seemed to shake the very planet itself. Dust and sand drifted down from the ceiling as the power behind the roar shook the foundations of the chamber. I jumped back to my feet, dodging left to avoid a wild swing from Acheron, retaliating with a swift punch to his neck. He pulled backwards, shocked from the impact, and I took advantage of this, swinging my left leg into his chest quickly. However, this proved to be a costly mistake, as I felt my foot crack loudly on his thick dark armour. I yelped in pain, before hearing a loud bang, and feeling a dull ache in my back. I turned around to see Cocytus pointing her tiny silver pistol straight at me, and I jerked in pain as I felt another round fly into my body, this one penetrating my chest with a horrifying squelch of blood and flesh.

Across the room, Firenze was running into problems of his own. Styx was now being backed up by Lethe, who was quickly sprinting around the massive black beast, causing the odd cut and wound on his pale white flesh, cutting through a few of the blackened bandages that adorned his body. Meanwhile, Phelgethon had readied his cannon, and levelled it straight at Firenze.

I screamed and threw a powerful thunder spell at the warrior, knocking his aim away, and instead he hit the wall near to Styx, who shouted in shock as he ducked quickly.

"Sorry boss." Phelgethon muttered, before readying his weapon again. This time, Firenze was prepared, and knocked the large man backwards with a back-hander, smashing him into the wall behind him.

While this was happening, I felt myself getting weaker and weaker, the bullets lodged in my chest and back were causing me to become lethargic. I shuddered from blood loss, starting to feel cold. Acheron took advantage of this and slashed at me again. This time I wasn't quick enough, and I screamed in agony as the blade cut right into my left arm, sending a wide splash of blood to splatter the wall.

Firenze turned to see me in imminent danger, and waded in, his roar blasting my eardrums apart. However, he was hit by a combination of shots from Acheron and Cocytus, and promptly dropped to the floor, slowly reverting back to his human/genome form. I swayed a little, the loss of blood finally getting to me, and I fell to the floor beside Joachim, gasping for breath like a goldfish out of water.

The last thing I saw before succumbing to unconsciousness was the heavy metal door that had been locked earlier fly across the room, propelled by a huge purple explosion from the corridor outside. My swaying vision picked up on a few blurred shapes entering the room, but I descended into darkness before I could figure out who they were.

* * *


End file.
